Ever Rise
by LoquaciousQuark
Summary: Vampire AU. In 1902 London, Fenris's flight from his former master leads him straight to the city streets—and the night's creatures who walk them. After a chance meeting with one who calls herself Hawke, Fenris's escape is curtailed as he finds his fortunes entangled with her own, forcing them both to face old fears and old scars as he attempts to win his freedom at last.
1. A Meeting Occurs to Mutual Displeasure

**AN: **Welcome, everyone, to the latest installment of Quark Writes More Than Intended. I actually know the exact date this fic came into existence; on February 6, 2012, I sent my dear friend and beta Jade an email with the subject line "VAMPIRES EVERYWHERE" and maybe four lines of dialogue, and that was that. I've never even particularly _liked_ vampires or the vampire mythos either, so I'm not sure why this concept fascinated me so much, but the Dragon Age Big Bang gave me an excuse to write it at last and now, a year later, I've finally managed to finish the Dragon Age vampire AU I couldn't let go.

I want to first thank Frikadeller (frikadeller dot tumblr dot com) for her amazing, amazing artwork for this fic. I have no idea how she managed to reach into my head as she did to pull these characters to such vivid life, but I am so unspeakably grateful she donated her time and effort to something so ridiculous and yet so dear to my heart. The first two character sheets are spoiler-free, but the two art pieces are scene-specific, so for those who wish to avoid spoilers for the moment those pieces will also be linked at the end of the appropriate chapters. :)

Fenris character sheet: tinyurl dot com /byartq3  
Hawke character sheet: tinyurl dot com /bdqch3p  
Art #1: tinyurl dot com /bfq7czz  
Art #2: tinyurl dot com /bh3aqv9

And of course, I couldn't get through one of my massive pre-fic notes without thanking my best friend Jade for her tireless efforts to improve my writing, even though I keep insisting on using the skills she gives me to write about characters and ships she doesn't particularly care for. The fact that she knew this fic was going to be Hawke/Fenris _and _long (though it still ended up longer than either of us expected), and she _still _decided to edit it anyway is one of the great mysteries of our friendship, and I am never going to be able to precisely articulate how much it means to me that she does it with such enthusiasm and unshakeable patience. This fic (and every hopeless side-plot in it) is dedicated to her.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

**Ever Rise**

-.-

_9_ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,  
if I settle on the far side of the sea,  
_10_ even there your hand will guide me,  
your right hand will hold me fast.  
_11_ If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me  
and the light become night around me,"  
_12_ even the darkness will not be dark to you;  
the night will shine like the day,  
for darkness is as light to you.  
_Psalms 139:9-12_

-.-.-

**Chapter One**

A Meeting Occurs to Mutual Displeasure

-.-.-

There was no colour upon her cheek, not even upon her lip; yet there was a stillness about her face that seemed almost as attaching as the life that once dwelt there: - upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein: - to this the men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, "A Vampyre! a Vampyre!"

—_The Vampyre_, John Polidori

-.-.-

_London, 1902_

_August_

It was raining.

It was not, Fenris thought, hunching further into his coat, as if it ought to be unexpected – three weeks he had been in London, and three weeks the nights had brought him nothing but rain – but all the same the cool, slick fingers of rainwater trembling down the back of his neck were as unwelcome as the first evening he had arrived. The gas-lamps flickered wildly along the narrow street, caught in the swift and sudden winds that surged here and there with fickle impulses, tossing a bit of news-print against the scuffed toe of his boot, sending thin waves rippling across the shallow puddles that lined the edges of the cobbled road.

Ahead of him the road cut sharply left; he turned up his collar and followed, ignoring everything but the curve and shape of the shadows and the heavy fall of his revolver against his side. The word had come from Anso only two nights ago, the note even now tucked into his vest. As shifty as the man might be he had not yet misled him – two of the creatures dead and gone was proof enough of that – and so when one of the lamps before him abruptly guttered out, hissing with oily smoke, Fenris kept his pace steady, moving only to slide his hand into his coat until his fingers brushed the cool wood of the Remington's handle. With his other he pulled the narrow brim of his hat lower over his eyes: a futile gesture, perhaps, given his hair was pale enough for mortal eyes even in this rain, but he was not a careless man and against such an enemy he would not –

A woman's cry rang out through the rain-muffled street, rough with terror and pain; a moment later another cry followed in a different voice, one with clearer words: "Please, _help_!"

Two then, desperate, and not far ahead – he broke into a run, pulling the revolver free as he drew close to the empty, shuttered shops that lined the streets, careful to avoid the worst of the standing puddles in the London gutters. The second voice called out again as Fenris neared the next bend in the road, this cry more frantic than the first; he paused only a moment at the corner to press his back against grey brick before moving cautiously into the adjoining street, the revolver's muzzle up and steady and glinting here and there with shards of silver rain.

Ahead, half under a shopfront's low-hanging awning, lay a woman in evening white, her black coat torn open at the waist to splay around her in the soaked street. A tall, thin boy in a vest and shirtsleeves knelt over her, both hands to his mouth; when Fenris's boot caught the edge of a puddle the boy looked up sharply, and even through the steady rain and the cap pulled low over his eyes Fenris could see that he was white with terror. All of the gas-lamps were out save one at the farthest end of the street.

"Help," the boy said, his voice tight and with the faintest traces of an accent, "_please._ She – we were walking and this black shape came from nowhere – she's _bleeding –_"

Two quick steps and Fenris was there, kneeling with the boy on the slippery cobbles, sliding the woman's blonde hair from her unconscious face with his black-gloved fingers, seeking out what he knew already to be –

_There. _

Two small wounds spaced no more than three fingers apart, white at the edges and bleeding, marking with their livid stain the pale skin of the girl's throat.

"What – what is it?" the boy whispered, touching a forefinger to the lower mark in repulsed fascination. "It looks like some kind of bite-mark, but what could have possibly_ – _I was here the whole time!"

"Not all evil is so easily seen," Fenris said shortly, scanning the darkened street before returning his attention to the woman. Still breathing, though pale, still beating her heart in time; the creature must have been interrupted by the boy and his own presence. "Come," he said as he rose to his feet. "Pull her from the street. It is not safe here."

The boy was stronger than he looked; in a moment his companion was tucked safely against the shop-front under a delicate display of women's hats, her blonde ringlets falling damp and close against her white cheek, her eyes closed in unnatural peace. Her black coat the boy tucked more securely around her, doing up the buttons from hip to neck with the ease of practice, hiding from the moonless night her gleaming white dress and the redder stain upon her throat.

Fenris watched a moment, then turned again to the street; the boy joined him when his task was done, tucking his blood-stained fingers under his arms. He was taller than he'd thought, Fenris realized, nearly of his own height, and the darkness of his hair under his cap gave his face a younger look than truth, though he was still not yet a man. His face was still pale.

"Sir," said the boy, his jaw clenched. "What _is _it?"

"A hunter," Fenris answered, lifting his revolver again to sweep the street, knowing the word to be fit for more than one of them tonight.

The boy shifted again. "A hunter of what?"

Movement at the end of the street – Fenris stepped forward into the billowing sheets of rain, his hand tense and steady on the trigger – but a lean, filthy hound stumbled into the pale circle of light thrown by the one lit lamp instead. Fenris watched it nose forlornly through an overturned dustbin and find nothing, and then he turned back to the boy.

"Of blood," he said, and the dog let loose a short, miserable howl.

"Of –" the boy began, his eyes wide, and his gaze flew to his companion. "But – will she –"

"She will live. The thing that fed on her was not…finished."

"What thing?"

He paused. The boy's eyes were steady, his face unafraid, though his hands were still crossed across his chest. Fenris said, "There are creatures who thrive only in the night. Evil things."

"What do you mean?"

"You have heard of them. Beasts who take the shape of man and feed on the blood of their victims."

"You mean –" The boy stared, astonished, then let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "You cannot be serious, sir. Those are legends. Children's stories. They're not _real._"

Fenris felt his lip curl in disdain. Even here they refused to believe their eyes; even here they walked blindly into danger and found themselves surprised at their jeopardy. "Look to your friend," he snarled, throwing out his free hand in a sharp gesture that flung raindrops in a short, glittering arc between them. "Look to her throat. Is that the work of a child's story? Is that the mark of a _legend_?"

The boy flinched and a dark strand of hair slipped loose into his eyes. "I don't – I didn't –"

"No dog did that," Fenris continued, scowling, stalking closer to the boy, taut with irritation and uncertain shadows and the knowledge that one of the creatures still lurked close, waiting, watching, ready to finish the life of its victim. "No _animal _left those marks. There are old and evil beasts that hide in your London streets, whether you acknowledge them or not."

"And you come here to hunt them."

Fenris inclined his head, sweeping his gaze again down the length of the black street. The rain picked up again, sluicing down in heavy, regular waves, and he pulled his collar closer to his neck in fruitless effort. No fireplace in his room at the inn, either – this damp would take days to fade from his bones.

"Someone must, I suppose," the boy said almost to himself. "But what do you shoot them with? Don't you need holy water, or silver bullets, or – I don't know, an arrow that's been blessed by an elf who's never touched cold iron?"

"You speak nonsense," Fenris said shortly, "and your carelessness will kill you. Consider – if the one that attacked her was not y–"

Fenris stopped himself, arrested mid-word by a thought, staring at the boy who was older than he thought but who was not yet a man, whose skin was still white with fear. _Impossible _– but – if it was _not_ –

His voice came hard and hot. "What is your name?"

The boy lifted his chin, his blue eyes flashing above his pale cheeks. "Hawke, sir."

_Sir_ – but no respect in that tone, now, no deference; only delight and sharp teeth and the thin thread of laughter. The revolver came up and his finger squeezed _hard_ on the trigger – the night blew apart in light and the splintering retort – and the creature was gone.

Before the echoes of light began to fade Fenris had already cocked the hammer, swiveling on his heel to press himself into the shadows under the awning. The blonde woman slept still against the shop-front, breathing lightly; at the end of the street the one lamp guttered in desperation, its light shivering smaller and smaller on the rain-glittering street. The dog was nowhere to be seen.

A flash of color caught his eye. The boy's – the _creature's_, he reminded himself – tan cap lay upon the cobblestones at his feet. Carefully he bent to take it; it was better-made than he had expected, sturdy and thick, well cared-for save the new hole pierced through the crown by his bullet.

"You are, sir," came the creature's voice above him, soft through the grey and hushing rain, "an excellent shot."

Fenris snorted, easing sideways as he scanned the rooftops across the road. Misted shapes all, blurry and indistinct, and impossible to tell _where _without aid – "And you an excellent actor."

"The benefit of practice."

"I do not make a practice of deceit."

The voice laughed, then, easy and light, and when it spoke again the accent was thicker, strong enough that he could name the root of it as American. "I heard there was a new hunter in town. I didn't expect you to be quite so –"

The gunshot cut the creature off, the shadow that was its crouching form vanishing from the roof of the bakery; a moment later a step sounded on the awning above him, and he fired two more shots in quick succession through its flimsy protection. But there was no thump, no cry of pain, and after a heartbeat's pause Fenris took three quick steps into the unprotected rain and turned, the Remington raised to the place where the creature stood upon the shop's sloped roof behind him with one hand out for balance to the attic window that jutted towards her.

Towards _her. _

The rain slackened for a breath, long enough for Fenris to see at last the true face of the thing he chased. Her eyes were too bright in her pale face, her skin too white and too smooth; her dark hair spilled over her shoulder in a disheveled braid, the ends curling where the rain plastered them against her shirt. The vest had fooled him, he realized, appalled and furious, the fabric cut thick and loose to hide what little figure she did have. She inclined her head towards him, brushing a bit of rainwater from her brow.

"So quick," she finished, and she smiled at him.

Fenris _snarled _and fired again, incautious with anger, but the shades of night belonged to her kind and to _her _and not to him, and when his shot went wide she drew a sigh of mist around herself and vanished. His last shot he spent to blow even that curl of mist apart into shreds of white smoke, knowing it would achieve nothing but so lost to his anger he could not – _would _not –

Below the awning, almost vanishing into the night's shadows beneath the display of hats, the blonde woman stirred. Fenris clenched his fist around the revolver, gritting his teeth, staring up at the place where she – _it –_ had looked down upon him, where it had _smiled _at him; then, carefully, he let a long slow breath hiss out between his teeth, taking with it his anger and his frustration into the dark and constant rain. When he was once more in command of himself he placed the revolver into its hidden holster and turned to the woman just opening her eyes, glassy and indistinct with lingering fear.

"Come," he said roughly, not sure how much she understood, "there is a doctor not far from here."

She nodded; he helped her to her feet and waited as she tucked her black coat more closely around herself, and then when he was certain she could stand on her own, led her northward to the small office, ignoring the wind that carried through the rain the faintest, laughing whisper: _Good night, hunter. _

-.-.-

The Broken Longsword was not a residence known for its excellence. It was, in truth, barely a residence at all save the fact that four walls and a roof enclosed Fenris's narrow, uncomfortable bed; privacy was nonexistent with the constant noise of the tavern filtering up through his floor and his own neighbors bellowing their numerous petty squabbles across the narrow hallway. But coin was dear in abject flight and if the inn was not comfortable it was _safe_, at least for him, and the landlord asked no questions as long as his four shillings were delivered every week.

Several days had passed since his first meeting with the creature who had smiled at him in the rain. Anso had visited once to tell him there was no more news of either the woman or her brethren – unsurprising, as those meetings rarely left both parties living in his experience – but all too soon came the 16th of August and the Daces' yearly fête, and he was forced to put his nightly hunts on hold in favor of white gloves and his one black coat.

It was not that he looked forward to the party itself, nor even the company – indeed, he had met the young Lady Dace all of once at a similar event just after his arrival in London, though at the time he had found her sensible enough – instead, his quarry lay among the guests. The Daces were an old and storied family even in a city full of them, tracing their lineage of nobility back to the times when maps still warned of dragons, though their wealth had dwindled over the years; then more recently in 1870, the Lord Anwer Dace, Lady Dace's father, had turned the last dregs of the family fortune to trade and merchandising, building strong friendships with eastern Europe until he had doubled and then tripled his investment. Now the Daces stood proudly at the helm of a vast international empire, and as always at their annual celebration they were careful to invite the sundry dignitaries who facilitated the trade of their precious roads.

Including the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The hackney carriage cost him another 2p and a sideways glance from the coachman, who seemed prepared for neither the gentleman emerging from the disorder of The Broken Longsword nor his destination. A sharp glance from Fenris, though, and the coachman turned hurriedly enough back to his horses; and when the carriage settled at last into its easy, rocking rhythm he allowed himself to lean back into his seat and turn his attention to his goals.

Nearly six years had passed since Fenris had last seen Giulio Prinetti in person, but there was little doubt in his mind of recognizing the man. The last time had been at the villa in Rome, half a decade before Prinetti had ascended to his current position. It had been cold for April, and colder indoors, and though Fenris had spent the majority of the evening in a pain-soaked delirium he remembered too well the bare, hungry look that had flickered across Prinetti's face at the end of the meal, when he had leaned close to listen to the pretty, vicious promises whispered in his ear by the man who headed the table, by the man who was his mas—

A street urchin darted across their path with a laugh, startling one of the horses into a whinny, and Fenris was torn violently from his thoughts as the carriage lurched hard to the left. He could hear the driver soothing his horse and cursing the boy who'd alarmed him; Fenris tightened his jaw, but soon enough the driver had his horse to rights and with a polite apology he drove the carriage on again. Fenris settled back, what little he had of composure restored for the moment, but he did not allow himself the memories again. Time enough to dwell on those years later; time now to discover from Prinetti the truth of Fenris's own hunters.

The rest of the ride passed swiftly and without further incident, and when at last the carriage drew into the long avenue leading to the Dace estate Fenris felt the iron disquiet in his chest ease. Here the dress gave way to the hunt; here the glitter of jewels marked only prey. Even a tamed wolf might track after his instincts, and Fenris knew himself to be no tamed thing.

Not any longer.

The carriage came to a stop in the warm light spilling out from the great windows that spread across the whole of the Dace manse. The driver he dismissed – no coin to waste on a journey as easily walked at the end of the night – and when the servants opened the carriage door he emerged as blank-faced as any nobleman, as cold and aloof and politely disdainful as they were ever once to him. Once inside a manservant relieved him of his hat, and with his jaw set Fenris allowed himself to be led to the heart of the Dace estate.

Nearly eighty guests were gathered here in the great hall, all arrayed in gems and silks and shining smiles; more voices floated through the open double doors at the far end of the room, twined with lifting strains of music as if to warn Fenris of the necessary breadth of his search. The room was already warm despite the opened windows, gold and silver fans fluttering across women's faces as Fenris stepped along the wall to survey the Daces' guests. Some he recognized by face if not name; more, though, were strangers to him, men in foreign uniforms bending towards women with jewels in their hair and none of them the man he sought.

Slowly he worked his way along the wall, some part of him aware as it always was of the conversations that drifted by. "_Straußenfedern__, mir wurde gesagt_," said a woman to a man in a blue dignitary sash, the enormous feathers set in her headdress waving wildly. "_Sehr__exotisch__._" And two young women clustered behind one spread fan, giggling: "_Le__ déchirure dans sa robe est énorme – elle ne l'a même pas remarqué_!" And another man, stout and grey-haired, pantomiming a rifle lifted to his eye before a group of breathless onlookers, saying too loudly, "_El tigre__ es feroz, pero yo no tenía miedo. Levanté mi rifle y _–"

Fenris snorted at the last, but allowed the unlikely gamesman his fierce tiger. The crowd thickened at the doorway to the grand ballroom and he paused a moment, assessing the crush of black tuxedos and elegant gloves and beribboned shoes, when a voice at his elbow caught his attention.

"Signor Fenris," said Lady Dace, smiling, "how good of you to come." She was in gold tonight, her brown hair pulled away from her face, and for the second time Fenris found himself grateful that she was too well-bred to stare at either the whiteness of his hair or the two thin silver lines that trailed over his chin to vanish into his collar.

"Your invitation was welcome," he said, bowing briefly over her hand. Welcome, perhaps, in another way than she'd meant it, but –

"I am sorry my father couldn't be here. He's away on another expedition in the roads. Old ruins, you know, but the fascination runs in the family. My uncle will join him in a few days' time."

"Indeed," he said, and when she gestured he followed her around the crowd to a smaller side door which led directly into the ballroom. The music was louder here, a cheerful quadrille by Lanciers tumbling over the regular tapping of dance shoes. Perhaps forty more guests were dancing here in two long columns, the men's lapels draped as thick with jewels and ribbons as the women's necks. "You are fortunate in your company tonight."

"We've worked hard to keep them," she said, her voice frank as they passed alongside the laughing, whirling couples. "I'm thankful he trusts me to host in his absence, but I _will_ be glad when Father's returned."

"I heard mention that your family intends to make overtures into Mediterranean waters."

"Yes, sir. My father believes there is good trade to be had in wine."

They skirted the musicians, pausing the conversation for a moment until they passed away from the loudest cello; then Fenris said, "Perhaps you know an acquaintance of mine, then. Giulio Prinetti, of Milan?"

Lady Dace frowned, tapping her fan against her bottom lip. "The name is familiar to me. The Foreign Minister?"

"Just so."

"He – _is _here, I believe, sir, though I'm not sure where he is presently. But," she added, her face clearing into a smile as she drew close to a group of men and women standing at the base of one of the double, sweeping staircases, "speaking of acquaintances, you must allow me to introduce you to my friends."

"Lady Dace –" he tried, conscious that every second wasted politicking with the gentry meant another chance for Prinetti to slip away, but she was already at the shoulder of a short, stout man with a flaming red beard braided into a complicated mess and a near-empty glass of wine in his hand. "Excuse me, Uncle Oghren," she said over his guffaw, touching one of the women of the group on the shoulder, a tall woman dressed in dark red trimmed in white and gold, her hair twisted high on her head –

Her black hair pulled away from a pale, smooth face, framing bright eyes and dark lashes, red lips turned up in a smile better fitted for the rain.

"The Lady Marian Hawke," said Lady Dace, and the musicians ended the quadrille with a flourish.

The greatest risk to them both, Fenris later decided, lay in that first moment, in that quick instant when his anger ran blackest and his senses narrowed to the sight of that smile and the sudden silver hiss of lyrium in his veins. He saw her weight shift forward, saw the tendons of her throat flex even as he himself drew in a breath – and then the guests broke into polite applause and the second shattered, and he heard as if from a great distance Lady Dace's voice saying, "From Rome, Marian. Perhaps you know some of the same people."

"Perhaps," said the creature that called itself Hawke – no lady she, despite her title – smiling at him again. "A pleasure to meet you at last, sir."

She did not proffer her hand; he did not bow. But Lady Dace took little notice, only laughing as she said, "At last?"

"Oh, yes," said Hawke. "Until now we have only passed each other in the night."

His mouth was dry enough that he had to swallow twice before he spoke, but his voice was level when he said, "Just so."

Lady Dace seemed to catch something in his tone and she threw him a surprised glance, but the musicians struck up again into a German valse in a minor key and suddenly she took Hawke's hand in her own. "Perhaps you can coax her onto the floor, signore," she said, ignoring the abrupt movement that Hawke made at the suggestion. "She dances so well but so rarely."

He opened his mouth, but her refusal came swifter than his. "No, thank you – I'm sure my card is quite full –"

"Allow me. Ah, as I thought: untouched and empty all. Come, Marian, one dance."

"I will not impose upon either of you," Fenris said shortly, irked at the very idea, irked more that he seemed to be of one mind with the creature, but before he could protest further Lady Dace had presented Hawke's hand close to his chest, close enough for him to see the innocent sensibility in her face and the unwilling acquiescence in Hawke's. To refuse again would be to insult them both, and though he did not particularly care for the wounding of the creature's pride he _did _for Lady Dace and the connections she represented. He still had not found Prinetti; if he offended the Daces now, the next chance might not come so easily.

"If you insist," he said, his voice stiff, his arm stiffer as he offered it to Hawke.

She took it, as uneager as he, and when the next space on the floor came they were caught in it, swept away by the swelling of strings and the flashing whirl of silk.

The first few steps went badly, both of them unhappy and awkward; then his feet remembered their way and the rest of him followed, and he found that despite the nature of the thing he held in his arms she did, in fact, dance well, and she danced well with him. Her hand in its white glove rested lightly on his shoulder, a bracelet of gold and rubies wrapped twice around her wrist; her other hand he held in his own, and in spite of his own gloves Fenris thought he could feel the cold seep of her fingers through the kidskin.

No vest to hide her figure, here, nor rain to blur her face. Her dress was dark and heavy with embroidery, made darker by the paleness of her bare arms and throat; the touches of white and gold at her shoulders and her slim waist did little to lighten it, and neither the candles nor the warm gleam of brass could bring a flush to her cheeks. The creature's features were even enough, her jaw a touch square and her nose just too long for true beauty, but her mouth was full and her bright eyes almost too blue, and when she turned her head just so he could see an echo of that cold loveliness that touched so many of her kind.

_Dangerous_, he thought, but more than that: _deadly._

Hawke smiled at him as if she knew his thoughts; in retaliation he lifted his arm and turned her under it, sparing himself a moment's respite from the peril of that smile. But she moved gracefully despite her surprise, and smiled again when her fingers came to rest on his shoulder, and when his palm settled once more on the small of her back she stepped more lightly than before.

"I had not expected to see you again so soon," she said at last, and her accent seemed less heavy than he remembered. He said nothing, choosing instead to watch the other couples circling with them, and eventually she spoke a second time. "I did not know you knew Lady Dace."

Still, he did not speak. She turned under his arm again, the dark silk of her skirt spinning out in a red arc, and again she came to rest easily in his grasp, one eyebrow lifted in arch surprise. "Still so quiet?" she asked. "I remember you being more…eloquent."

"And I remember your teeth in a woman's throat," Fenris said harshly, piqued now into comment. "Should I warn the hostess of her danger? Or have you already stolen this hour's life from her as well?"

Her hand tightened around his and – at _last – _her smile vanished. "I am sated for the moment, signore," she said, and there was something both strong and dangerous in her voice that sent a lazy tremor of anticipation – for flight? for battle? he was not sure – along his veins.

Hawke's eyes lowered to his chin as if the lyrium itself had responded; Fenris turned the both of them in a sudden step and her gaze flew to his. "Keep your curiosity to yourself, creature."

"A cat has more lives than I," she said lightly, though she did not stare at his scars again. "I did not mean to pry."

Fenris snorted. "No?"

"I suppose even a hunter might have secrets he wishes to keep."

"And you are so considerate as to avoid them."

"I make a habit of consideration."

Fenris snorted again, and this time when they turned together, his left hand clasping her right behind his back, he allowed himself to meet her eyes over his shoulder. "And a practice of deception, _Lady_ Hawke."

Her head turned away as she took hold of his shoulder again, and for a breath his gaze caught on the tiny golden pins half-hidden in her hair; then she said, so quietly he nearly missed it under the music's stronger chorus, "My mother was the Countess of Pembroke."

Again her falsehoods, and this time in a world he knew too well. "The Amells have not held that seat of power for a quarter of a century."

"Yes, signore. My mother was Leandra Amell before she died."

Then it was his turn to look to the dancers circling alongside them, unsettled by the pain in her voice, unbalanced by the memories of rumors of that gruesome murder. But _no _– he would not have sympathy for the monster that she was – he would not be swayed by pretty words from a forked tongue. "With a viper such as you by her side, I wonder that she claimed you at all."

Hawke's eyes flashed suddenly with hurt and with anger, and when she twisted under his arm she came back too hard into his chest. "Mock me if you want," she snapped, "but leave her ghost in peace. She suffered enough in life without your derision burdening her death."

He drew her even closer, snarling, furious at both her false sorrow and his own unexpected susceptibility to it. "Then let us discuss your death, _Hawke_, and the deaths on your own hands. How many have you slaughtered for your own gain? How many innocents have died to slake your thirst?"

"None," she said, and her hand tightened on his shoulder to the point of pain. Her eyes were level with his; she held him thralled, transfixed by truth and a hard, ancient light that caught the candles and burnt them brighter. "From the day I was turned I have not once bled an unwilling soul; from the first moment my heart stopped I swore never to take another's in its place."

"Pretty promises," he said, sneering to mask his turmoil, conscious that the cellos were driving them fast into the final movement, "and yet I heard the woman scream that night."

"I let her see me as I was," Hawke answered evenly. "And recall, sir, that I shouted for help too."

"A trap."

"An invitation. I wanted to meet London's newest hunter."

Fenris's jaw tightened then, and without a word of warning he gripped her waist and held her still, stopping them both in the midst of the circling stream. "So met," he said, his voice low, his grip unyielding. Other couples slid by in smears of black and orange and pale green all glittering with jewels, but he did not look away as the violins soared their triumphant finish into the rafters, and she did not flinch. "Now what do you _want_ with me?"

"I want to offer you employment," she said into the silence, and a moment later the room filled with the muted applause of hundreds of gloved hands.

"Employment," Fenris repeated, blank with shock as the couples around them began to disperse; then his jaw tensed in fury. "I am not your _servant_," he spat, his voice low only from the sheer force of his anger, "nor your slave to be bought and sold, and if you _dare _to think –"

"That's not what I meant," Hawke said sharply, cutting him off with a nod at the nearby wall, and he allowed himself to be drawn aside, too astonished and offended to find words for his protest. She continued, either not noticing or not concerned with his raw irritation. "I have a…well. A number of companions with a – _unique _set of skills. We were set for a rather important job early next week, but due to certain circumstances I find myself shorthanded."

"And you ask – _me._"

"You would slot in quite nicely. We haven't had a solid blade for some time."

"I carried a revolver."

"I have watched you for many days," she admitted, and Fenris was torn between ire and gratification that she had the grace to look embarrassed. "Besides, you don't move like a ranged combatant."

His lip curled. "I would sooner tear your heart from your chest."

Hawke lifted her chin until her gaze was nearly level with his, and when she spoke her voice was even. "You may try, of course. But I think I can offer you more."

"You underestimate how much I wish to kill you."

"Flatterer," she said lightly, but before he could unleash his anger she dropped her teasing tone in favor of something more serious. "It pays very well, firstly. The interested parties are quite – interested. Nothing illegal," she added at his glare, "but you'll understand if I withhold the details pursuant to your acceptance."

"It will cost you more than coin," said Fenris, but he was abruptly conscious of the scuffs on his shoes, of the thin-wearing places on the elbows of his jacket; abruptly reminded of the nights spent only in his shirtsleeves as he tried to clean blood from his sole vest. "I have survived so far without your benefaction."

Another quadrille began, the dance floor filling quickly behind them. Hawke crossed her arms, wrapping her white-gloved hands around her elbows. "Fair enough. I've also been authorized to offer you better lodging. Not that the Broken Longsword isn't an inn of –" she paused, searching for the word, "—_character_, but one of my friends is the proprietor of a clean, well-kept place in Lambeth, where he says he will let you a furnished room he personally guarantees to be free of both rats and roaches."

"You mock me," he said, unwilling to show her his sudden indecision, unwilling to admit to himself his hesitation. But – _no _– he had gone without coin before, and lodging too, and despite the attraction of the offer he would not accept charity from one of her kind.

She must have seen something of his reluctance in his face, and before he could reject her entirely Hawke nodded to the open doors of the ballroom, and Fenris turned to see over his shoulder the short, gray-bearded figure of Giulio Prinetti lean heavily on the arm of his French wife as they departed.

"I can offer my aid in other things as well," Hawke said quietly, and Fenris whirled on her.

"You distracted me. You allowed him to _escape –_"

"You wouldn't have had the chance to speak with him anyway. He's ill, and he's been run to ground by the younger Dace brother all night. But there are other ways to get the information you need."

"What do you know of what I need?" Fenris snarled, stepping close enough to Hawke that he could hear her indrawn breath, could feel the lyrium in his arms waking in response to her nearness.

"I know I'm not the only one being hunted," she told him, and when she tilted her head he saw again the little gold flicker of the pins in her hair. "I won't promise victory, but – I _can _help."

"And your price?" he said, rough, hurting, flushed with shame and anger. "More death? For me to overlook your nature and to bury your shredded prey without a word? _Or_," Fenris added with a bitter smile, struck by an old, familiar realization, "is it _my _blood you want? The lyrium in _my _veins?" He smiled at her again, mirthless and cold, and when she dropped her eyes to his chin he curled his lip. "Every one of you is the same."

"That is _not _my price," Hawke said, interrupting; her voice was hot and frustrated, and Fenris found himself startled into silence. She caught her breath and continued with more control, "My price is this: first, and perhaps of most importance to _me, _you will stop trying to kill me. My heart," she added, holding up both hands to forestall his argument, "will remain in my chest for the duration of our allegiance. After that I make no claims to it."

"That will depend more on you than on me," Fenris warned her. "I will not allow you to slaughter at will."

"So noted. Second: you will also forbear from killing any of my companions, or from giving information on them to others who could harm them. And third—" she paused, her eyes hardening, "—you will not speak of my mother in that way again."

"Do you always tie so many strings to your offers?" he asked, more to gauge her response than out of true interest, because he was not – was _not _considering her offer – was not considering accepting the aid of one monster to kill another.

"Not usually," Hawke admitted, and when she gave him a wry smile the hard thing in her eyes vanished. "But I don't think you're a usual person."

Fenris stared, doubted, and frowned. Behind him the quadrille had given way to an allemande, the musicians measuring out its careful rhythm with the deep-voiced cello; a flash of gold caught his eye and he turned to see Lady Dace dancing with her uncle, his red, braided beard brighter than her gown and one hand still clutching his wineglass – and only when he faced Hawke again did he realize he'd given his back to her, as incautious as a raw recruit and just as foolish. And still, she had done nothing.

He would be a fool to trust her, but – without her, he had no chance at all.

"I will consider it," he said at last, and felt with the words the quiet click of a distant lock – but whether that lock was opening or closing he could not tell.

"Good," she said in answer, and if she was pleased she kept her feelings from her face as she dug swiftly into her little purse. "Here," she added, holding out to him a flat, palm-sized white box.

"What is it?"

"A gesture of my thanks," Hawke said, with a twist of her mouth that might have been chagrin on another woman. "And a token of welcome."

Fenris nearly told her to keep it – but something in the arch of her eyebrow told him he would end up with the thing foisted upon him one way or the other, so despite his misgivings he accepted the box and tucked it away, unopened, in his jacket.

Unruffled, Hawke nodded towards his chest. "The Hanged Man's address is in there too. If you're interested in the room, just send Varric a note. He'll take care of the rest."

"I understand," Fenris said stiffly. "As I said – I will consider it."

"That's all I can ask," she said, and after a brief hesitation she looked away, turning to face squarely the whirling sea of silk and satin. "Good night, Fenris," she said over her shoulder.

He said nothing, and she was gone.

-.-.-

It cost another 2p to hire a cab, but Fenris was conscious enough of his own scattered mind to realize a lone walk across half of London would be neither wise nor safe. The ride itself was a blur, at once short as a breath and as long as a year as he tried to sort through the hundred threads of his thoughts; as soon as he settled on one side of the decision the other called him louder, pointing out both the folly and the danger of his choice.

Even the chaos of the Broken Longsword could not distract him. He pushed through the tavern crowd without ceremony and ignored the hallway brawl entirely, and it was not until he had closed and locked his brittle door behind him that he remembered the flat white box the creature had given him at that last moment.

He pulled it from his jacket and tore it open; a moment later he let out a curse and slammed the thing on the bureau, disgusted and furious and choked with a wild, desperate sort of satisfaction, because of _course _this would be Hawke's idea of a gift – of _course _she would choose this in welcome.

Six silver cartridges wrapped in a plain white handkerchief, and a note:

_For the next time._

_Signed,_

_A Friendly Vampire  
_

* * *

**Art #1**, by frikadeller: tinyurl dot com /bfq7czz


	2. A Number of Opinions Are Expressed

**Chapter Two  
**  
A Number of Dissenting Opinions Are Expressed

-.-.-

Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so  
good, sir, to rise and be put to death.

—_Measure for Measure_, IV.3

-.-.-

Fenris did not sleep that night. The plain white box sat untouched on his desk, its half-open face allowing him the barest gleam of silver when he caught it in a careless glance; the creature's note lay beside it, crumpled and smoothed and folded again, accusatory and compelling both in its implicit invitation. Even from where he sat on the hard edge of his bed he could see where the ink bled through the paper; even in the unlit darkness of his room he could not escape the black, narrow shapes of the words that named her for what she was.

Minutes, hours, years passed while he sat in his vest and shirtsleeves, his hands resting on his knees, his head bent as he stared into the shadows and tried to trace the path that had led him to this place. He wanted to refuse her – _needed_ to refuse her, needed to scorn the offer of her charity and her condescension, needed above all else to turn back time to that first night in the rain and drive his fist through her heart, ending the threat of her existence before she ever poisoned his mind with her _words. _

His one candle burnt low, then guttered out; the couple that lived one room down began an argument, broke something glass, and settled themselves again in teary apologies; the noise of the tavern beneath him swelled with the end of the night's first shift and the beginning of the second, with men who desired only to be elsewhere than home. But even that bedlam eventually faded as the unseen stars slid along the black London sky, only one or two pinpricks of light managing to escape the clouds here and there, and for a long time after the inn fell silent there was no sound but the occasional, quiet clopping of horse hooves on the street below.

He could still kill her. He knew her face, knew her name – and what a fool, she, to give it so easily! – if he wished, he might go even now to the place she rested and destroy her once and for all.

_If you wished, _a voice whispered, and Fenris closed his eyes.

But wishes meant little in this life – Fenris had learned _that _long ago – and if he was not one to trust to hope neither did he shy easily from reality, and as he stood at last and stretched his aching back and crossed the small room to its smaller grime-black window he knew that in the end the reality was this:

He needed Hawke's help.

That was it, the truth, bitter to taste and harder to swallow. Fenris leaned heavily against the wall beside the desk, glaring at the box and its white handkerchief and its silver cartridges; then, when the gleam became too bright he turned away, staring blindly through the muddied, age-rippled glass at the silent alley below. He needed Hawke. To kill the ones who hunted him, to stand against the things that haunted his sleep even now – no better irony than to strike them down with the aid of one of their own. And once those deaths were achieved there was nothing to stop him from finishing what he began; nothing would hold him in her thrall a moment longer than his word.

Abruptly he realized that the world was lighter beyond the grime, that all at once and without his noticing, dawn had come.

The window-glass was cold under his thumb, the ancient joists creaking like the bones of an old man as he rubbed a small, clean circle into the decades-old smut. A cold and watery bar of light crept through, thin and pale and streaked with dust; it wandered across the scratched wood of the desk and fell shakily across his black jacket thrown over the back of the chair, and for a brief and alarming instant he felt vividly the weight of Hawke's gloved hand on his shoulder, heard her low voice lift steel-strong and smiling.

"Enough," he said aloud, shaking his head in a sharp movement, and the image was gone. His jacket remained where it was, dark and innocent and as threadbare as ever.

Fenris narrowed his eyes, then raised his head to look once more out the window – and then he seized his revolver and the scrap of paper that held an address and strode to the door, leaving Hawke's box – and her bullets – behind.

-.-.-

The Hanged Man was a squat, brown building huddled between two larger brick edifices, inelegant but sturdy; and Varric Tethras was its proprietor, a short, barrel-chested man of quick humor and quicker mind. Fenris found him in the first floor's empty, quiet pub at a wide worktable, a cloth laid across the wood to protect it from the pieces of an enormous, gleaming crossbow spread atop it. His light hair was pulled half away from his face, and the hour was early enough that the man was not quite dressed, his rich red shirt open halfway to his navel to bare a surprising wealth of chest hair, but despite his state of attire his eye was bright and his smile was easy as he stood at Fenris's entrance.

"My apologies," Fenris said, pausing in awkward realization at the door. "I was not aware of the time."

"Nothing to worry about," he said in a strong American accent, wiping his fingers on an oil-rag before circling the table to offer his broad, callused hand in welcome. "I take it you must be the new hunter there's been such a fuss over lately. Varric Tethras, at your service."

"Fenris," he answered shortly, and followed at his wave into the room. The Hanged Man was well-kept, as Hawke had said; the chairs upended on their tables gleamed with linseed oil and the floor was freshly swept, and Fenris had the nagging suspicion that should he investigate further, even the cutlery would be clean. "You take a great deal of pride in this place, Mr. Tethras."

"Varric, please. That title belongs to the elder Tethras brother, and as fond as I am of Bartrand, I can't stand him."

Fenris gave him a quick look, but Varric only reseated himself in his chair, a bland humor in his face. He thought for a moment to inquire further, but the vagaries of family dynamics were outside his immediate realm of knowledge, and instead he said, "I was given your name by a…mutual acquaintance."

"Hawke, yes," said Varric as he lifted the dissembled stock and sighted down it. "She does manage to collect the most interesting people."

"I have not been _collected_," Fenris snarled; then he clenched his fist and spun to glare out the large glass window that declared _The Hanged Man _in elegant, reversed letters_. _"I find myself – unable to achieve certain goals alone. That is all."

"All right, all right. I won't ask questions where they're not wanted. But you _do _know Hawke's not the – ah, sunlight type, don't you?"

Bitter frustration and anger swelled in the back of his throat. "I am aware."

"Well, good. Saves us both time and bloodshed. That always makes for uncomfortable first meetings."

Fenris turned, wary but not yet _en garde_. "Do you intend to threaten me?"

"Threats are coarse tools for ugly jobs," said Varric evenly. A small gold hoop glinted in one ear as he leaned over the table for a length of spring, sliding it into place in the crossbow's complicated firing mechanism. "I prefer a more civilized approach."

"A crossbow."

Varric laughed. "Bianca can be eloquent when she puts her mind to it."

"As can you, I suspect," Fenris said, his frown relaxing, finding himself more comfortable with this man despite his connections and his own suspicions. A hansom cab rolled by in the street behind them, its driver shouting over the creak of the wheels at a passing friend. "You are American?"

"Chicago-born and raised. My family used to own a good number of hotels over there, though we've still got a handful to our name. I was a copywriter at the _Chicago Wall _for a while. Wrote a few books."

"And yet you left."

"My father was convicted of fixing horse races." Varric shrugged and locked the stock into place under the crossbow's arms. "I came here to get clear of it, and to maybe bolster a few of our foreign alliances that didn't care so much about embarrassing relations with prison time."

"And what happened?"

"I met Hawke."

The name was a douse of cold water, and Fenris felt his pleasant ease drain away. "It seems she excels at diverting one's plans."

"Especially for someone who can't leave the house during business hours."

He gritted his teeth, annoyed, needing a reason to stay, needing more the slightest justification to leave. "You know what she is and you still fight alongside her."

"The pay's great," Varric said, grinning, but at Fenris's glare he put up his hands in acquiescence. "I know what she is," he said, his tone more serious, "but Hawke's one of the truest people I know. Honest, loyal to a fault, not hard to look at—" Fenris scowled, "—and when it comes down to it, she's just…a _friend._"

"For a monster."

"For anyone. She tries to be, anyway. Yours, too, if you want."

Laughable – beyond laughable. Absurd. "That is not why I came here."

"I guessed." Varric replaced the assembled crossbow on the worktable and stood, tossing his oil-rag behind him as he looked to Fenris by the window. "But whatever deal you've struck with her, you should know she won't break her word if she can help it. Unless you kill her first, in which case Bianca might need to step in."

"I understood threats to be coarse tools for ugly jobs."

"Bianca is never coarse."

"Of course not."

Varric laughed. "Was that a pun, sir?"

"What?" Fenris said, startled; then he bit back an exasperated sigh. "It was not."

"And here I thought you had a sense of humor." Varric shook his head, grinning, and circled the table to stand within arm's reach. "So, Fenris. Knowing what you know about Hawke, let me ask you: are you staying?"

His last chance – but he knew his decision already, had made it the moment he'd taken up the note with Hawke's writing and set off in the pale dawn-light for the home of her friend.

Fenris sighed and said, "It seems I am."

-.-.-

It took surprisingly little time to give notice at The Broken Longsword and transfer his belongings to his new lodgings, but then he had surprisingly few possessions to move. His cloth-wrapped greatsword and, as an afterthought, the little white box from Hawke he carried himself; the one trunk remaining he sent along with a hackney chaise and a young urchin with an unexpectedly deep voice. In short time he was installed in his new room at The Hanged Man, three times the size of his old one and with not a single enigmatic stain on the simple brown walls.

Varric stayed long enough to ensure the room was in order, then left Fenris to his privacy. Only a few minutes were necessary to arrange the room to his liking; his clothes filled only a single drawer, and once his rarely-used shaving kit and his much more well-worn whetstone were arrayed on the bureau he found himself quite out of possessions to unpack.

Hawke's white box he placed on the dark-stained writing desk in the corner. It lay there virtuously, as if unaware of the strings that tied him to Hawke with its acceptance; he looked at it a long moment, and then flicked the lid loose with one ungloved finger. The six silver bullets were still nestled snug inside the white handkerchief, and Hawke's note was still folded neatly into the lid. Cautiously, as if they were wild things that might bite, he drew the pad of his finger across the nearest one. The metal was cold and polished and reminded him too clearly of Hawke herself – and a sudden, unwanted flicker of white light jolted up the lyrium lining his forefinger, scraping over his knuckle and the back of his hand to vanish just above his wrist.

Fenris cursed, shaking out his hand before curling it hard into a fist; then he replaced the lid and shoved the box into one of the desk's many nooks. Hawke, a snake in hiding – and giving him gifts with teeth.

A man with a cart abruptly rattled by on the street below, vending hot pies and pasties to passing pedestrians. It was nearly eleven now – Fenris had not eaten for three meals, had not slept for longer, and before he could convince himself to preserve his swiftly-dwindling account he had hurried down the carpeted stairs to purchase a pair of meat pies from the peddler. He ate them swiftly in his room, scorching the tips of his fingers; then, without ceremony, without even drawing the drapes against the sun, he sank onto the bed fully-dressed, and in the space of three breaths he was asleep.

-.-.-

Two days later, as the sun began at last to set over the Thames, Fenris finished the last of his preparations for the evening's events. The Remington was tucked into his belt – he had forborne, for the moment, the use of Hawke's cartridges – and the long-weakening clasp of his left boot was mended enough to hold against whatever enemies – or weather – he might face tonight.

Varric had given him the rough plan that morning: a gang of smugglers had set up a small operation in Southwark, running opium and Chinese spices underground to a number of unsavory and, more importantly to the London police, _untaxable _clients. Hawke and her band of misfit vigilantes apparently meant to infiltrate the organization, uncover the head of the gang here as well as their source in the Pacific, and bring in for questioning all members of said gang, active or otherwise. Fenris had not understood the necessity of Hawke's presence – and, by extension, _his _– until Varric had explained that there was rumored to be a reason that Athenril's group only ventured into the streets at night.

His mouth twisted as he lifted his cloth-wrapped sword from the wall and carefully untied the lacings. A chance to kill one of Hawke's kind he would never decline, but the circumstances of that chance seemed more to rub vinegar in the wound than salve it, only another reminder of the company he'd chained himself to for the immediate future. Still, his sword was clean and sharp and as ready as he, and without further introspection he strapped the blade that was almost as tall as he was over his back. The thick leather strap settled crosswise across his chest, sliding comfortably over his loose coat into the groove worn by years of use. His vest was reinforced with leather straps, enough to ease the weight of the sword and to mitigate a blow from a fist, but it provided little protection against bullets and things that struck with more than human strength.

Varric knocked as Fenris tugged his gloves into place, the last accoutrement necessary for the evening. They were sharp little things, more gauntlet than glove, articulated joints fitting neatly over his fingers and the backs of his hands to hide the lyrium there. Danarius had had them made over twenty years ago, but they still gleamed as if they were new; and as he fastened the tiny clasps at the heel of his hand he ignored as he always did the rough place on the metal where there had once been words engraved.

"Dainty little things," said Varric, leaning against the doorframe. "I don't suppose you picked those up at the five and ten."

Fenris glanced at him as the last latch snapped closed. Varric too was dressed for battle, a long leather duster falling nearly to his knees over a dark red shirt and brown trousers tucked into boots; the crossbow was in a black case at his side, protected against wind and weather alike, and Fenris was not surprised to see the name _Bianca _etched in careful script across the case's side. "No," he said at last, and faced him. "I am ready."

"After you," Varric said, gesturing grandly at the hall behind him, and with one last brush of his fingers over both the hilt of his sword and his hat, Fenris stalked out into the evening air.

There was a black coach waiting in the feeble light of dusk, a short, bearded man perched atop it with a ready smile and the reins to the matched chestnuts in one hand. "Good evening, sirs," he said cheerfully, doffing his hat. "All ready to go, I trust?"

"As always, Bodahn," said Varric. "Hawke's given you the address?"

"Aye, sir. Won't take but a minute, if the roads are clear."

"Excellent. Bodahn Feddic," he added to Fenris. "Manservant, driver, all-around miracle-worker. And this is Fenris, Bodahn," he continued when Fenris did little more than incline his head. "Swordsman, reluctant ally, champion brooder."

"What?"

"Just a joke, just a joke," Varric said hurriedly. "Come on, we'll be late. Stop glaring or I might feel a little awkward."

Bodahn stared at them both, and Fenris sighed before climbing into the coach. "Just…go."

"Onward, then, sirs!" came Bodahn's voice from the box, relentless in his geniality, and with a cluck to the horses the coach lurched forward.

Fenris leaned back against the seat, his eyes half-closed as they rolled through the quiet London streets. Few people were left outside – here and there they passed a pair of young men hurrying in the opposite direction, or a woman in furs being helped by her husband into a carriage, but save the black-uniformed policemen the city was drawing into itself for the night. The last of the sunlight caught a moment on the edges of the tallest buildings like a cloak snagged on a nail; then it tore free all at once, disappearing under the heavy blue haze of twilight.

The coach turned a corner and Varric leant down to snap open his black case. Bianca gleamed as he lifted her from the velvet, nearly singing as he lifted her to his eye and tested the tautness of her springs. "So," Varric said as he tightened a coil, "any last questions?"

He had a good number of them, in fact, but limited himself to the relevant. "Tell me: you fight with Hawke like this often?"

"Not _often_, I'd say, but regularly enough. Enough to keep the Hanged Man running and my periodicals in print. But I don't go with her on every job."

"No?"

"Only as I'm needed. There are several of us in our little group –" he ticked them off on his fingers, "Anders, Merrill, Isabela…you'll meet them eventually, I'm sure. But none of them could make it tonight for various reasons, which left us shorthanded. Hence, you."

"Indeed," Fenris said sourly, and he turned to look out the window again. "Does Hawke search out such opportunities as this on her own, or do they all happen to fall so neatly at her feet?"

"No, no, that's Aveline's job, mostly. She's our fourth tonight. Didn't I tell you?"

"You did not," Fenris said, aware even after this short acquaintance that Varric did little by accident. "It must have slipped your mind."

"Well, now's as good a time as any. Aveline is an old friend of Hawke's, a private detective who works out of Covent Garden. Her husband, Donnic Hendyr, is a Detective Inspector over at Scotland Yard – he's the one who hears about these sorts of things, and when – _specialists_ are required for certain tasks, Aveline forwards the information on."

"And you say she fights with us tonight?" For a moment he saw in his mind a faint, slender woman stumbling over her long skirts, ambushing an unwary guard with little more than luck alone. "Is she capable?"

"Aveline, capable?" Varric laughed. "I don't mean any offense to Donnic, but everyone knows Aveline might as well be the head of Scotland Yard for how good she is at the job. She's more capable than anyone I've ever met, and as likely to box my ears as thank me for the compliment."

Fenris frowned. "And she is a detective in her own right?"

"Yes, exactly," Varric said, laying his crossbow across his lap. "Private and with a reputation of impeccable, inculpable, unimpeachable integrity. Whenever the Yard's stuck on something, they bring her in as a 'consultant,' and when certain nonhuman lawbreakers rear their pointy ears and complicate police business, _we _step in. Easy enough."

"A woman of integrity who works with such a thing as Hawke."

"They're more alike in intent than you think." Fenris lifted an eyebrow, unconvinced. Varric sighed ruefully, thumbing Bianca's string, then shook it off. "Anyway, we're nearly there. You'll see for yourself."

Outside, the dusk had given way to true dark, a thin cloud-cover veiling patches of stars here and there as the wind guided it. The fine estates and clean streets had been replaced by closely-packed tenements and dirty hotels, by stray animals nosing among litter and refuse alike for scraps. Three or four men in heavy coats huddled under a pale gas-lamp, their faces turning as one to watch the coach pass, and Fenris felt the weight of their eyes follow long after they had turned down the adjoining street.

"An appropriate venue," Fenris muttered to himself, waving away Varric's questioning look. Then they were there, pulling up not far from a squat, dilapidated building with smokestains on the roof and a sagging front door. Bodahn did not linger once they'd disembarked – not that Fenris could blame him – and once the coach was safely away Varric pursed his lips and whistled: three quick, low notes that cut clear through the evening breeze. Fenris glanced left and then right, uneasy.

"You came," said Hawke at his elbow, and the lyrium from fingertip to shoulder was alight with white fire before he realized who had spoken. He recognized the voice before the face, her eyes wide above pale cheeks; still it took a full breath to ease his left hand's grip on her throat, another two to persuade his right arm to relax from where it was poised to tear out her heart – but before he could release her a thin, mirror-bright blade slid to rest along his cheek.

"Consider your next move carefully," came a new voice at his ear, a woman's voice, even and strong, and as Fenris stepped away from Hawke the blade followed to reveal a tall, sturdily-built woman in a light brown coat and trousers, her red hair held away from the firm lines of her face by a narrow cloth band. A man's tie was knotted at her neck, its cheerful orange and gold stripes incongruous with the unsmiling implacability of her expression. Bianca creaked from somewhere behind them both.

Hawke stepped forward, then, and palmed the flat of the longsword until it lifted away from Fenris's face. She was in trousers as well, and the vest and soft brown cap she'd worn the first night Fenris had seen her. "All right," she said, her voice light despite the cautious touch of her own fingers to her throat, "if everyone's had a chance to test their reflexes…?"

Fenris scowled and looked away as his hands dropped to his sides. The red-headed woman paused, glancing at him, but when she was apparently satisfied that he would not attack again she sheathed her sword at her waist so that the bulk of the blade was hidden by her knee-length coat. "If you're sure, Hawke."

"That one was my fault," Hawke said. "Aveline, this is—"

"If you are so concerned with keeping your heart," Fenris snapped, ignoring the woman's outstretched hand as he looked over his shoulder at Hawke, "then perhaps you should not place it in such jeopardy."

"Charming, that one," Aveline muttered to Varric, but Hawke held his gaze steady and there was no fear in her pale face.

"I thought," she said after a moment, "that you seemed quite in control of yourself."

"Spare me your assumptions," he said, forcing the lyrium in his arms to quiet again. Hawke watched him in undisguised interest but made no comment, even when he winced at the twinging irritation of unspent power seeping back into his skin. Several streets away, a woman shrieked in distant, drunken laughter.

"Anyway," Hawke added once the light was dormant, in a voice pitched only for his ears. "I _am _sorry I startled you. I'll try not to do it again."

He hesitated, then gave her a short nod, and Hawke turned back to the other two with a ready smile. "Shall we try this again? Aveline, Fenris; Fenris, Aveline. Everyone be friends."

"Oh, stow it," said Aveline, rolling her eyes, but this time when she extended her hand Fenris was enough in command of himself to take it. Her left arm was enclosed elbow to wrist in a fitted bronze sheath, an elegant and effective shield with an etching of marigolds along the edges. "How do you do?"

"Forgive me," said Fenris stiffly. "I find myself in – trying circumstances."

"Ah," Aveline said with sympathy. "Has Hawke shanghaied you into her company as well? She's done it to all of us, once or twice."

"Something like that," Fenris said, and Varric guffawed even as Hawke bristled in mock affront.

"Fenris is a hunter," she told Aveline, though her subsequent sideways glare encompassed Varric as well. "And for the record, I cajole. I bribe. I plead. I do not _shanghai._"

"Call it what you will, but I'm the one out here in the dark while Donnic's safe and warm in bed. But Fenris: you're a hunter? Of what?"

Hawke answered for him. "Of me."

Aveline stiffened at that, her hand going back to her sword at her waist, though she did not draw it. Her eyes flicked from Hawke to Fenris, assessing them both; then she relaxed and shook her head, apparently acquiescing to both the humor in one and the resentment in the other. "You keep the most unusual company, Hawke."

"It's a temporary truce."

"_Very_ temporary," Fenris said through gritted teeth. "Let us get _on _with this."

Hawke clapped her hands. Above them the clouds were thickening with the promise of rain – as usual, Fenris thought with resignation – and the gas-lamp nearest them sputtered as if in sympathy. "Here's the plan," she said, the light and teasing tone gone from her voice. "Athenril's been spotted coming out of this opium den every evening for the last week. We know her men are moving boxes in and out all day, but there's another hand in this, a man who only ever comes out at night to speak to Athenril. That's the one we're looking for."

Varric thumbed Bianca's trigger. "Do you know anything about him, Aveline?"

"Not much. He calls himself Danzig. Donnic thinks he might be Turkish, but he hasn't been able to settle on much more than that."

"Athenril's not the kind to get mixed up in dangerous jobs like this. Why now?"

"That's something we'll have to ask her once we've found her," Hawke said, looking over Varric's shoulder at the squat brown building. "We won't have much time once we get inside. Our goal is to get both Danzig and Athenril out alive if we can manage it. Fenris, you'll be up front with Aveline; Varric, you and I will take the stragglers and any marksmen they might have in the rafters. But with any luck, I'm hoping it won't come to that."

"Can do, Hawke."

Fenris lifted an eyebrow. "And how do you plan to avoid the bloodshed?"

Hawke rocked back on her heels, her hands fisted on her hips, and grinned. "I was thinking I'd just ask."

-.-.-

"You'd _ask?_" Fenris snarled, ducking lower behind the upended chaise-lounge as a hail of bullets pounded over his head.

"I didn't know he was blackmailing her!" Hawke threw herself down beside him, gasping, laughing, her cap gone again and her tail of dark hair singed at the end. She leaned up until she could peek over the edge of the chaise, then flung a handful of gold flame across the room to a distant wail of pain. "Look at the bright side," she shouted over the roar of gunfire and twanging crossbow bolts, "I've always wanted to visit an opium den!"

An opium den populated by over twenty desperate smugglers and half that number again in shades and ghouls, summoned from death under their feet by the vampire Danzig. A number of responses leapt to Fenris's tongue, none of them politic but all of them true, but instead he said, "Your Athenril is down."

"Is she?"

"By the folding screen."

Hawke leaned up again, searching the far wall for the wide, heavily-embroidered screen that guarded the hearth. The enormous scarlet dragon sprawled rampant across its white panels dominated the room, but between its forefeet lay a much smaller huddle of fabric and limbs. "Found her," Hawke said. "Will you cover me?"

There was a split-second where Fenris was incapable of assenting, incapable of comprehending how, exactly, he had come to this moment; then Aveline's shout rang out from the corner where she was pinned by a pair of men with knives and Bianca answered, two bolts thunking in quick succession into the taller one's neck as Aveline speared the other upon her sword, and as she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand Fenris came back to himself. He said, "I will."

Together, they leapt into the fray. Fenris led them blade-first, the greatsword swinging easily through the half-dozen or so smugglers and ghouls that still stood between them and Athenril. He was careful to avoid killing blows when he could against the human men, conscious of Hawke at his back, conscious more of the black-shadowed figure of Danzig laughing at them from the relative safety of an overturned desk, the air shimmering around him with an opalescent glint.

A shade sprang from the far side of a low couch, its too-long arms outstretched towards Hawke; a spray of ice shards leapt from her lifted palm and the shade recoiled into Fenris's following sword, and the heavy weight of it buckled the creature's neck in one blow. Fenris did not pause to survey the damage – another was upon him from his left, and two more smugglers close behind it, and in a way it had not for nearly a decade Fenris's world narrowed to the exhilarating wildness of battle. There was no Aveline, no Varric, no opium den with its stained upholstery and its walls thick with old smoke – there was only the heart-familiar weight of his sword in his hand and the pull of his muscles and Hawke at his back aglow with magic. They cut a swath through their enemies as easily as a surgeon with a hot knife, precise and formidable and without equal; men and shade fell alike before them, and when they reached Athenril's prone body and Hawke knelt beside her Fenris stood over them both, his lyrium singing, his blood howling, his blade a whirl of heavy steel in the trembling candlelight.

In that moment it did not matter that Hawke was one of them, that he stood in her defense against another. Fenris was _alive_, riveted in flame, twisted into the leather braiding of his sword's grip, as surely a creature of war as he had ever been made to be. A man brought a knife to bear and Fenris struck the thing from his hand – he recoiled and Fenris followed, reversing his blade in the air to beat the man a sharp blow on the temple. Then Hawke was up again, saying something, her voice lost to the fire and the roaring in his ears, but her expression was clear enough as she pointed to Danzig and Fenris spun on his heel, his left hand sliding into his coat and withdrawing the revolver in one smooth motion.

The first bullet caught Danzig in the shoulder, a punch through muscle and dead tissue that staggered him and wiped the smile from his face; the second grazed his cheek and he snapped his head hard enough away that his beaded turban slid crooked on his head. He glared at Fenris and drew shadow around himself, preparing to vanish – but Hawke was there first, fire cupped in her fingers, shredding the shadow under the insistent blaze and rooting him in light. The distance between them was an easy thing; Fenris surged across it, lyrium-light rolling up his arms, and in the beat of a half-drawn breath his fingers were wrapped gently around Danzig's heart.

Hawke cried, "_Wait!_"

He froze. Danzig's dead heart slid against his palm with every indrawn gasp, a bird's wing beating against its cage; his eyes were black in rage and fear, his lips drawn back over white teeth too long and too pointed for mortal men. Fenris tensed at the sight of them and Danzig cried out at the added pressure – then Hawke's hand was there, wrapped around the wrist-guard of his gauntlet like a vise where it vanished into Danzig's chest.

"Wait," she said again, and her voice was sharp through the haze like a spark striking off flint. "We need him alive. _Alive._"

He understood the words and did not wish to, wanted less to obey them. He turned his head away, leaned closer to Danzig and the fear on his breath – and Hawke's grip tightened, not pulling, not giving way, insistent and unwavering.

"Fenris," she said, "please."

With a curse his grip loosened, yielding under her pressure like a stone giving way before a river. He tore his hand free from both Danzig and Hawke and whirled, stalking to the other side of the room where Aveline was wiping her blade on an unbloodied chair cushion. "I beg your pardon?" said Aveline, and only then did Fenris realize he was still cursing, a long stream of Italian invective spilling out in unchecked rancor.

"Damn them both," he finished, and slung his own sword across his back.

Aveline smiled at him then, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "Welcome to London, Fenris."

"I know my Italian's rusty, but what was that about goats?" Varric said, approaching with Athenril leaning heavily on his shoulder. She was a slight, lean woman, brown-haired and dressed in green, but her eyes were hard and old under the bruise spreading over her forehead.

"Nothing undeserved," Fenris said shortly. Behind the desk Hawke was closing the runed manacles at Danzig's wrists and ankles, tiny flares of blue fire marking the catching locks; then she stood and crossed to them, holding something small and dark in her hands.

"So," she said, "I think that went rather well, don't you?"

"For some more than others," Athenril muttered, touching her forehead as she pushed away from Varric. "Still, thank you for coming, Hawke."

She grinned, then handed Athenril the thing she had removed from Danzig's possession. It was a small box fashioned to look like an antique chest, but when Athenril opened it there was nothing inside but dust.

"Empty," she sighed, but tucked the box away into a pocket. "No matter. I know where he keeps it."

"Do you need help?"

"I can handle it from here," Athenril said, her smile as sharp as a dagger. "Unless you want me for something else?"

"Only a few questions," said Aveline, already reaching into her belt for a small notepad and pencil. "Step outside with me a moment."

"Of course, Detective," said Athenril, and with a mocking bow and a wave she was gone into the night.

Fenris watched her go, openmouthed in blank shock; when Varric and Hawke turned without further concern to the business of trussing the wounded and unconscious for Donnic's men, he spun on them both. "Is that all?" he demanded.

Hawke looked at him, surprised; he advanced, one arm spread back towards the door that opened now onto the black and empty London street. "All this and you free her; all this for an empty chest and you don't even ask about its contents?"

"I don't have to know everyone's secrets," she said with a shrug. "Sometimes people _do _have personal business I'm not privy to."

"And you are willing to accept that," he said, aware his voice was thick with incredulity, aware his gauntlets were creaking as he fisted his hands at his sides. "To let her go on blind faith."

"I find the best faith is often blind."

"_That_ will earn you nothing more than a knife in the back."

"Why, Fenris. I didn't know you cared."

"Be silent," he snarled, stung, and turned to cool his hot-running blood in the breeze skimming in through the open door. "If you kill yourself through your own idiocy it matters little to me."

Varric laughed, though not unkindly, and Hawke's light steps crossed the room to his elbow. "Well," she said evenly, "seeing as I haven't killed myself yet – again – thanks for your help tonight. I'll pass your share of the pay through Varric tomorrow."

"Fine."

"Bodahn will be by in a moment with the coach and Donnic's reinforcements. He can drop you at the Hanged Man on the way home."

"Fine," Fenris said again as Varric asked, "And where are you going?"

Fenris looked up, but Hawke's eyes were opaque on Varric's face. "I need to hunt."

"Good hunting, then," Varric said, and Fenris's gut roiled in disgust. A banquet of bleeding victims, here, and still not enough to sate her thirst – still not enough to check the hunger in her heart. The same as every one he had ever known.

She glanced at him then, as if touched by the weight of his distaste, and lifted her mouth in a wry half-smile. "But will my back remain un-knifed tonight, do you think?"

"Guard it yourself," Fenris said, striding to the door, unwilling to face either Hawke or the truth of the violence he was allowing her. "My word is as good as yours."

Her voice lifted in answer but Fenris was already outside, his face turned into the cool wind that carried with it the smell of the Thames, thick and heavy and better even so than the rust-thick rot of blood. Carriage wheels rattled on the cobblestones and he looked to his left; and there was Bodahn atop the coach, the matched chestnuts now flanked by policemen on a pair of bays. Another horse drew an empty police-wagon; when it bumped to a stop a dark-haired man with sideburns leapt out, his long grey coat flapping around his legs.

Aveline came to her husband, directing him and the company that followed him into the battered den where the smugglers still lay, pausing only a moment to introduce him to Fenris. But though Donnic's smile was easy they were both occupied by other thoughts, and without a second look Fenris stepped into the empty coach and sank down by the window. Too much talking tonight – too many arguments, too many _words _clouding his mind and blurring the once-clean line between hunter and hunted. He did not care for murky issues – those were for scholars and scientists, for people confined to their ivory towers and safely removed from the truth of white teeth and black eyes emerging from the shadows. The moment he allowed himself doubt was the moment he took a blade between the ribs.

The coach shifted under Varric's weight as he climbed aboard and settled across from Fenris, then rocked into motion as Bodahn set the horses' heads towards Lambeth. Something of his disinclination to talk must have showed on his face, because Varric did little more than tip his hat over his eyes and apparently drop off to sleep, and Fenris found himself grateful for it. He looked back, only once, to see Hawke standing alone in the street by one of the horses, her hand on its bent neck. Her face was white in the night as she looked after them, her eyes dark as her unbound hair – he glanced away, unsettled, and when he dared to look again there was nothing left of her but a dissipating curl of mist.

_Death_, he thought, remembering the rush of vivid elation as he'd fought with Hawke at his back, and began to wipe the blood from his hands.


	3. An Invitation is Given and Accepted

**Chapter Three**

An Invitation Is Given and Accepted

-.-.-

The vampire is prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by particular persons. In pursuit of these it will exercise inexhaustible patience and stratagem, for access to a particular object may be obstructed in a hundred ways. It will never desist until it has satiated its passion, and drained the very life of its coveted victim. But it will, in these cases, husband and protract its murderous enjoyment with the refinement of an epicure, and heighten it by the gradual approaches of an artful courtship. In these cases it seems to yearn for something like sympathy and consent.

_—Carmilla, _J. Sheridan LeFanu

-.-.-

"You needn't glare so, Fenris. I told you Donnic gave them nothing."

"That they have come at all means they are too close. I should move on."

"I've already got men at every dock and port keeping an eye out. If anyone asks about you Varric and I will be the first to know."

"Anyone else, you mean."

Aveline sighed, leaning back in her chair, and passed a hand over her eyes. There was an inkstain on the heel of her hand, just past the white cuff of her shirtwaist, and Fenris was willing to wager that there was a matching one on the knee of her long curry-colored skirt. "I know I've said it before, but I wish you'd let me bring Hawke into this. Much as it pains me to admit it, she can go places I can't."

"_No_," Fenris said firmly from where he stood at the window. Aveline's office was well-appointed, the tall windows letting in great spills of sunlight that poured across her overfull desk. She'd let him look through it, once, the first time she and Donnic had had him to dinner a few days after their meeting in Southwark; he'd found her surprisingly busy for an amateur detective and a woman besides, her folders crammed to the tearing point with contacts and half-finished lines of inquiry and requests of assistance for everything from lost fortunes to lost husbands. This was his third visit, two weeks to the day after first meeting Hawke, but this time his purpose was solely professional. "I do not trust her."

"Even after last night? That was the fourth job you've been on with her. You didn't even have to hold back for any humans."

"Even so."

"You know she'll find out anyway."

"But not from you."

"No," Aveline said, and sighed again. "Not from me."

Fenris turned back to the window. The street below was full this afternoon, men and women alike enjoying a surprising burst of clement weather; bicycles swerved through the crowd, their tiny bells filtering quietly through the window-glass, and in the distance a train's whistle sounded high and long over the gleaming river. At last he said, "I find myself – surprised you come so readily to her defense."

"You know she saved my life."

"But not your husband's," he said without thinking, and regretted it at once.

Two green-upholstered chairs were set facing her desk; Aveline stood and pressed her hands to the small of her spine where her shirtwaist tucked into her skirt, then smoothed her orange and gold tie and crossed to lean against the back of the chair nearest Fenris. "No," she said, and a shadow passed over her face. "She didn't."

Fenris winced. Aveline and her husband were two of the few people he respected in this city, and it disturbed him to think of how quickly he had come to value her respect of him in turn. "Forgive me," he murmured, but she shook her head.

"Wesley has been at peace a long time, God rest his soul, and I've made my own peace with that. It wasn't easy – I can't tell you how many times I called his name or began a letter before remembering he wasn't there to answer, but Hawke's jobs – and her _friendship –_ kept me busy enough to get through it. That was one of the hardest times of my life. We've been through too much together for me to get stuck now on her being something she can't help."

Fenris, unswayed, made a noncommittal noise.

Aveline didn't seem to notice his reticence. "Besides," she added, her cheeks flushing just slightly beneath her freckles, "last year – it was Hawke who helped me win Donnic."

"As I recall," came a voice from the doorway with some asperity, "I helped too."

Fenris and Aveline turned as one. There was a Gypsy woman at the door – a woman, Fenris thought, in every sense of the word – with one lace-gloved hand still outstretched to the brass handle. Her skin was dark and tanned darker, her black hair piled in loose waves upon her head to set off her heavy gold necklace and earrings; her navy and white day-dress was cut far too low and too snug for common decency, though the wicked smile on her face gave Fenris the impression that she was not in any respect common – or decent. She looked, in fact, beautiful, and like a woman who knew she was beautiful, and when she dropped into Aveline's unoccupied chair it was with a predatory grace as easy as a great cat's.

"Hello," she said, grinning, and dropped her head sideways upon her hand. "I'm back."

"Isabela," said Aveline in welcome and longsuffering both. "I thought you were gone until next week."

"Good winds, good crew," she explained, and with a smirk added, "_excellent _motivation."

Aveline lifted a hand to forestall her. "I don't want to know."

"It was only one—"

"I don't want to know."

"I was _really _bored—"

"I _don't_," said Aveline, each word clipped into its own sentence, "want – to – know."

"Spoilsport," Isabela said with a pout, and sank back into her chair.

Aveline watched her critically, as if trying to gauge whether or not she would attempt to continue her story; when no further explanation was forthcoming, she turned to Fenris. "Isabela owns a trade vessel, _The Siren's Call_. She was halfway to Morocco when that business with Danzig cropped up. Isabela, this is Fenris, your erstwhile replacement."

Another one of Hawke's then, he noted with some bitterness, but nodded. "Good morning."

Isabela fluttered one lace glove in response; then, with a second, sharper glance, she rose in a rustle of water-soft silk and came to lean against Aveline's shoulder. "I'm Isabela to my friends," she purred, her open gaze both frank and appreciative, "but _you _may call me Captain."

Aveline rolled her eyes. "Stop it. Be nice."

"I'm _always _nice. What are those markings?"

She reached for his chin; Fenris caught her hand halfway, his grip hard, his voice harder. "None of your concern."

"Ooh, and he's just _brimming _with cold insolence under all that white hair. Wherever did you unearth him, big girl?"

He bristled, but Aveline shook her head. "Don't listen to her. She's an idiot."

"I'm right here, you know."

Aveline slid her elbow sideways into Isabela's arm without looking. "Oh. So you are."

Isabela rolled her eyes and plucked at Aveline's loose white sleeve. "And every time I come back, here you are again, shrouded head to toe like a nun. Why do I buy things for you if you never wear them?"

"You never buy me things. You talk _me_ into buying ridiculous clothes no decent woman would ever wear in public, then run off and laugh at my embarrassment."

"Oh, yes. That does sound more like me."

"Shut up," Aveline grumbled, but it was not without affection. "Anyway, Fenris, as I said, don't mind Isabela. She might rob you blind if you're not looking, but get her daggers at your back in a fight and nothing will get through. She'll still rob you blind, of course, but at least you won't die."

"Do stop. You'll make me blush." Isabela winked, her dark lashes fluttering coquettishly over cheeks as likely to blush as his. "So Hawke's coerced you to join her merry band of misfits, hmm? Staying long, do you think?"

"No."

"Fond of dancing? I know a few places that don't shrink at taciturn glowers."

"No."

"Drinking, then. A friend of mine runs a reasonably respectable pub, if you don't mind eating off clean tables."

"I have a tab with Varric already," he said, amused despite himself. He did not tell her that Hawke was covering the tab as additional incentive; nor did he tell her that the first night she'd opened it he'd had a full bottle of the Hanged Man's most expensive wine in petty vengeance.

"What _do _you get the man who has everything?" Isabela sighed, pouting again, but Aveline nudged her away from her shoulder.

"There's a meeting tonight at Hawke's," she said to them both, "about the next assignment. Eight o'clock. You should both come."

"Sounds boring," Isabela said at the same time Fenris said, "No." They glanced at each other a moment, alike in both intent and intention, then turned back to Aveline.

She looked at them both a moment, one eyebrow lifting to her hairline. Her gaze swept across Isabela's face, then to Fenris's, inexorable and searching like the white glare of a lighthouse beam, exposing their flimsy excuses and withering them into nothing. "Eight o'clock," she said, her voice mild.

"Oh, fine."

"If you insist."

"I do," she said, standing, and then she herded them both with open arms towards the open door. "Now, if you don't mind, some of us have actual professions to tend to."

"Bad luck on your part," Isabela muttered, but if Aveline heard she ignored it, shepherding them through the hall and parlor and grand foyer to the sudden noisy sunlight of the London street, clapping Isabela's hat crookedly on her head as they passed it draped on a pot of cheerful marigolds. With one final push and a cheerful smile, she closed the door firmly in their faces.

The lock clicked.

They stood a moment, looking at each other. A feather on Isabela's hat tore its way loose in a stiff breeze; then, when that breeze died abruptly away, it floated wearily to the ground and sank into a muddy puddle at their feet. Silently, they both watched it sop up the water and turn a sad, despairing sort of brown.

Fenris glanced up. "I believe you said something of drinking?"

"It's barely noon."

"I am aware."

"I _knew _I liked you."

-.-.-

Evening arrived too quickly, and the walk turned out far too short, and at ten to eight Fenris found himself standing before a generous townhouse in the Italianate style off Belgrave Square. The walls were made of pale stone – he could not discern in the darkness if it was grey or light brown – but the small terraces and the windows were trimmed in wrought iron, intricate vines of soldered ivy unfurling across the railings as if they intended to root there.

He drew in a breath, considering. Her door appeared innocent enough, painted white and flanked by bright, welcoming lamps above six narrow steps, a stamped image of every other perfectly ordinary house on the row. Cheerful voices rose inside – and Fenris turned on his heel. This was idiotic; this was the rankest folly, and if he wished to preserve what little was left of his objectivity and ever fulfill his original purpose with Hawke he could _not_ enter her home, could not sit at her table and share her company in the guise of a guest. Some rivers were too wide to cross; some lines had to be preserved.

The door opened behind him.

Light pooled at his heels like a spill of honey, warm and golden and fluid at the edges of the shadow thrown before him, and he turned. A short, slender figure stood silhouetted in the door, and a young girl's voice said, "Please, sir, won't you come in?"

Fenris hesitated, as trapped as if she'd caught him with a snare. "I –"

"Mistress Hawke said you might not wish to stay. She's waiting inside." Then she said, "_per favore_," and Fenris scowled, irritated, wholly defeated by that tone in that language, by a memory of a hopeless appeal he knew too well.

The maid beckoned again; he strode towards her without speaking, noting in silence her uncertain, pale face, her green eyes too large for her head, her blonde hair pulled into a neat white cap. She dipped a hurried curtsey as he passed her, her hands knotting into the apron tied over her high-collared dark dress. "The library, sir," she said when he glanced at her. "If you'll – follow me, sir."

"_Mostrami la strada_," he told her, and her face brightened as if he'd given her gold.

She smiled as she led him down one hallway and then another, as she opened one of a pair of tall arched doors leading into a high-vaulted library. "_Signore_," she said, curtseying, and withdrew.

"Fenris!" came Hawke's voice from inside, and with a sigh, he followed it into her domain.

Her library was large, paneled in rich wood, the high ceilings barely making way for the enormous bookshelves that lined the walls. A broad stone fireplace was built into the northern wall; Hawke stood beside its small merry blaze now, smiling, dressed in black lace over cream. Two elegant walnut armchairs flanked a long, low sofa laid before the fire, all of them upholstered in textured burgundy; Varric reclined in one of the chairs in a dinner jacket, a glass of something amber in his hand, and Aveline, in blue, sat at one end of the sofa beside a man Fenris did not know.

The man looked tall from where he sat, would look taller if his shoulders were not hunched as if under a heavy weight. His hair was a ginger blonde, longer than Fenris's own but tied away from his face; his nose was straight and long over a mouth that bore lines of a once-easy smile. His eyes, when he looked up at Fenris's entrance, were brown and weary, a match to his worn and well-patched brown suit. Altogether, Fenris thought, he had the appearance of a man who had lived far longer than he wished.

Hawke came forward at his entrance, her eyes bright again, and gestured at the open seats. "Sit anywhere you like, Fenris. We're just waiting on a few more and then we can get started. Have you met Anders yet? He is, as you are so fond of saying," she added, lifting an eyebrow, "one of _my _kind."

Fenris gritted his teeth and turned his head, ignoring Anders's outstretched hand, ignoring the resigned twist to Hawke's mouth as she handed Anders a refilled glass of red wine. "Another soul to convert," she told Anders lightly.

"There always are," Anders said, and his voice was softer than Fenris had expected. "You'd think by now I'd be used to the feeling of absolute futility."

"There's a reason they call them hopeless causes."

Anders laughed at that, an easier sound, and Hawke tipped her glass against his. "Anyway, Merrill's around here somewhere too. You might as well meet all us nightwalkers at once and get it over with."

"There are _more _of you?" Fenris said, aghast, wondering with clenched fists why he hadn't yielded to his last shred of sense and fled the night he'd met Hawke. A guest in her house, now – and trapped with who knew how many monsters, all of them with death in their faces and the taste of blood in their mouths. He had the lyrium still, and his revolver was a reassuring weight against his side – if this went badly, if he needed – there was still hope.

"I'm glad you saved this to spring on him, Hawke, if just to see the expression on his face." Varric toasted him with a calmness that infuriated Fenris – mostly because he himself felt like a copper spring wound tight enough to snap – and then glanced over his shoulder at the wall. "You there, Daisy?"

A woman's foot appeared suddenly, a delicate white kidskin boot dangling from the top of one of the enormous bookcases; the lace edge of a petticoat followed, and then light green satin embroidered with sage leaves, and a moment later a woman descended lightly down an oak-wood ladder to the ground, a thick red book tucked under one arm. She blinked at the group a moment like a deer regaining its bearings; her short hair was black, braided closely around her ears, and her green eyes were wide and luminous in the candlelight. "Goodness," she said at last, a Welsh accent lilting her words, "has it really gotten so dark already?"

"That's just Fenris's mood," Hawke told her, and the wisp of a woman twirled to stare at him in unfeigned surprise.

"Oh!" she said. "Hello! I didn't realize we had another one. I mean, that someone else had arrived. I'm Merrill. I'm also – does he know? What we are, I mean?"

A vampire with the mind of a cloud. Fenris swallowed down a number of curses, then said, "I – am aware."

"Wonderful! Although I suppose if you're here with Hawke you must have known. That makes things _so _much easier. None of that pretending to have been in the south of France for the summer or going about with a parasol at all hours."

"Fenris is not overly fond of us," Anders said then, speaking to Merrill but with his eyes on Fenris, and in them Fenris saw the rough light of open challenge. "Are you?"

"Well, that's silly," Merrill said almost to herself as she perched on the arm of the sofa beside Aveline. "You might as well hate the stars for shining, or the leaves for changing with the seasons."

"My reasons are my own," Fenris said, more sharply than he meant to, but he stood in a room with three – three! – of them, the newcomer, the outsider, the friendless one. Aveline and Varric he might still come to trust – but in this place they were Hawke's first and foremost, and if they turned against him too he stood no chance at all. "I have seen too much of the power your kind wields when they are given freedom."

"And so you think we deserve to be hunted? To be staked and burned and killed for being nothing more than what we are? We can't even step outside at night without fear of discovery!"

"When there is nothing left of humanity in you, there is nothing left worth saving."

Anders inhaled at that, anger tightening his mouth, but Hawke stepped between them. "Settle, gentlemen," she said. "There's ample time for this later."

"Then let us be _done_ with this," Fenris said, and scowled at them both. "Or have you more disagreeable surprises in store for me?"

"Only one," Hawke said, her head turned towards the door behind him; a moment later he heard the footsteps as well, and the door to the library opened mid-argument.

"—I'm just saying give it a _try_. You'll never know if you like it otherwise."

"The last time you said that I couldn't look my sister in the face for a week."

"Sometimes that's just the price you have to pay for – oh, look, everyone's here already."

Isabela winked at him, and despite himself Fenris felt something of his tension bleed away. A woman stood beside her in deep blue, young and lovely, her dark eyes lifted to the ceiling in both amusement and exasperation. "Bethany," said Hawke, and the young woman looked across the room, her lips still turned up in a smile. "Fenris, I'd like you to meet my sister."

For the first time in his imperfect memory, Fenris found himself grateful for the mask of impassive detachment he had once so dutifully practiced in another life. It settled over him now, smoothing his brow, flattening the harsh lines of his mouth as Hawke's sister nodded to him as she crossed to the fireplace, the both of them as cold and unliving as stone. A thousand thoughts raced through his head like the fiery tail of a comet, impossible to grasp and just as impossible to slow: he wished to flee – he wished to kill every one of them – he wished to break every breakable thing in this room, to bury his head in his hands and laugh like the fool of Fate he must be to have found himself here, trapped, allied with four of the very things he hunted, that had hunted _him_ for ten years.

"Are you all right? You look a bit queer." Merrill gazed up at him, her eyes wide and concerned, her head tilted like a bird's. "May I get you a glass of wine?"

"_No_," he said; then, bitterly, "Yes," because if he could not be free he could at least step further from stark sobriety. Merrill disappeared and he dropped without ceremony into the flanking armchair nearer the door, raking a hand roughly through his hair.

He did not realize Aveline had moved closer until her hand dropped onto his shoulder. "It's not so bad once you get used it," she said softly. "They're all good people, just…caught in unfortunate circumstances. You can trust them."

"My experience proves otherwise," he said shortly, and Aveline withdrew her hand, but for both her sake and his own he mastered himself enough to give her a brief nod. Then Merrill was back with his wine and Hawke was pulling away from her sister by the fireplace, and some invisible, indefinable signal passed throughout the room to mark that the true business of the evening was at hand.

-.-.-

Bethany settled into the open place on the sofa nearest Fenris, offering him a cheerful smile he could not return, and Hawke gave a brisk nod. "All right," she said, "now that everyone's here –"

"—and Fenris is appropriately traumatized—"

Fenris glared at Isabela, and Anders let out a quiet, derisive snort, but Hawke continued as if she had not been interrupted. "—we can begin. I promise I'll keep it short."

"_Thank_ you."

"There are two orders of business tonight: cultists and Russians. Has anyone got a preference?"

"How large are the Russians?"

"Quite."

"Ooh, and how _large_ are the Russians?"

"I wouldn't know."

Isabela leaned back against the sofa, grinning. "Don't worry. I'll find out."

Aveline rolled her eyes. "A service to us all, I'm sure. I suppose we're starting with them, then."

"Fair enough." Hawke crossed her arms. "Three months ago, a large company of men washed up on the side of the Thames just east of the docks. They spoke very little English, but what little they said indicated they'd been shipwrecked in a storm and needed shelter. Is this sounding familiar to anyone?"

Bethany frowned. "I heard they'd wrecked – but I don't remember them leaving again."

"That's because they haven't," Aveline told her. "They cordoned off a few blocks right on the riverside and have been there ever since."

Merrill propped her chin on her hand and asked, "What are they waiting for?"

"Transportation home," Hawke said, and shrugged. "So they say, anyway."

"And no women?"

"Not a one."

"But then why should we bother them? They've not done anything horrible to anyone yet, have they?"

"Not yet," Hawke admitted, "but I think we should keep an eye on them anyway. Three months and no ship? And – there are rumors. Of revolutions and revolutionaries, and socialists after the style of the philosopher Karl Marx."

Unable to help himself, Fenris let out a snort of unamused laughter. Hawke looked to him, startled; and the others did as well, their expressions ranging from open interest to barely veiled annoyance. "Capital is dead labor," Fenris said, his eyes on Hawke, his lips twisting on the words.

She blinked; then Merrill clapped her hands. "Oh, I know that one! 'Dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.' How apropos!"

Bethany shook her head as Varric laughed, and suddenly wishing to be elsewhere, Fenris drained his wineglass. Hawke leaned one elbow against the mantle and grinned ruefully at Merrill. "Why I am not surprised you're fluent in dead German revolutionaries?"

"It was in your library, Hawke. Besides, I like his writing. _Vergegenständliche Wissenskraft –_ it's very strong."

Anders stood, one hand in his pocket, his eyes distant, and moved to look out the night-black window that faced east. "And you think they might try to spark a revolution here?"

"Don't get any ideas," Hawke told him, only half-laughing. "And – I just don't _know _yet. I just think we ought to keep abreast of the situation."

There was an abrupt, jarring pause. Fenris glanced to his right – and in his peripheral vision, Hawke did as well – and a moment later, Isabela looked up from where she'd been picking at her thumbnail. "What?"

Hawke blinked, visibly flustered. "Nothing. You're just going to – really? Nothing?"

Isabela shrugged, leaning back and crossing one foot over the other, and after a pregnant pause, Hawke continued. "Well—all right, then. I suppose if we're through with Russians we can move on to the cultists."

"Oh, yes," said Isabela with a languorous wave. "That sounds much more fun. And as if it pays better."

"They certainly do seem to have deep pockets," Bethany mused. "But – it's not going to be another of those terribly-named bandit groups, is it? Like the one with all the short men who called themselves the Undercuts?"

_The Undercuts—_"You are joking," Fenris said to her uncertainly.

Aveline burst out laughing, and even Anders grinned from the window. Bethany put one hand to her face. "Oh, no. I wish it were. There were the Undercuts, and the women who painted themselves to look like bits of buildings and windows – what did they call themselves?"

"The Invisible Sisters?"

Isabela gave a mock shudder. "_Ooh_, those were long nights. And that group of nasty little bloodsuckers that went around under the name Redwater Teeth. Imaginative as bricks, they were."

"Language! There are bloodsuckers present, madam."

"Stow it, Varric."

The order of the room dissolved, then, into laughter and old stories and good-natured ribbing. Fenris caught bits and pieces of conversations as one voice raised, and then another: Varric, he discovered, had once shot a wooden pillar three times before realizing it was not an enemy; Aveline had accidentally knocked Anders into the river on two separate occasions. Bethany was fond of her sister and Merrill was fond of _everything, _and Isabela had once made it halfway to the Cape of Good Hope with nothing more than a single bosun and a dinghy.

Hawke stood apart from them all. Fenris watched her, his empty glass raised to his lips, as she watched her friends, the whole of them laughing and talking over each other like a family who had been separated too long. There was a curious smile on her face, somehow delighted and wistful at once, and the sight brought suddenly to his mind a half-wisp of a memory – a woman's face, turned to him – or a girl's, with eyes like his, hooded with sorrow. Then Isabela gestured wildly and Hawke ducked under her arm, grinning, saying something quick in response that made Isabela laugh – and as she straightened again her eyes caught Fenris's and stayed there.

He lowered his glass and stood. Hawke looked at him, her smile slipping away to leave something truer in its place, and in response he inclined his head and walked to the door, ready to be through with this place, past ready to be away from a people who understood nothing of the danger they meant to him—nothing of the fear they forged in his heart. He did not need them to keep his safety, he thought, moving swiftly through the long hallways that led to freedom; he refused to place himself in the debt of four creatures of their kind. Hawke herself was threat enough.

Four! Four in one room, and him with them, and no drop of blood spilt. Fenris would not have believed it before this night – but then, he admitted to himself, before this night he would not have counted one of Merrill's ilk among them either. His chest burned with lyrium, with the power he'd loosed earlier, quietly, in case they'd tried to turn against him – but they had not, hadn't even mentioned the markings despite his certainty they could discern their nature. It agitated him that he had let them live; it agitated him further that he sensed even now his own reluctance to kill them. To kill _Hawke._

There was freedom in their deaths. Fenris had learned that long ago.

Orana was nowhere to be seen as Fenris gained the front door, and when he let himself out the coolness of the night air struck him like a blow. He paused on the second step down, gulping down deep swallows of air, cold and cleansing; one hand found its way to the wrought-iron railing at his hip and he gripped it like a man drowning, struggling to steady himself, struggling to make sense of a company that defied his history by its very existence. A decade of flight – of _slaughter –_ and still could he win no _peace?_

"Fenris?"

Her voice was at once infuriating and wholly expected, and Fenris fought the urge to turn and face her, to throw in her hands all his hatred and frustration and old grief at once. Instead, he turned his head only enough that she might see the line of his jaw in the lamplight. "What do you want?"

"I thought I'd ask you that question."

The stars were bright tonight, clear and distant and impassive; Fenris searched them blindly, wondering if somewhere among them hid the calmness he craved. "I have little tolerance for your games tonight. Speak your piece and go."

"No games," she said, and he heard her step closer. "You just left so quickly. I…wondered if you'd come back."

He did not answer; he did not know himself. Time passed them by, slowly, minutes stretching into each other until he did not know if they had been standing there a moment or an hour. There was no movement around them, no sound, and a cloud passed over the stars to dull what little light they gave. At last, he said, "I have no reason to stay."

They both knew he did not mean only this evening, and Hawke's shadow, thrown across his feet by the dim candles still burning behind her, shifted. "Do you have reasons to go?"

"Without number," he said bitterly, and saw the shape of her shoulders shift again. "I am not a man to whom God gives easy respite."

"Is it something I can help with?" she asked, her voice soft, and as gently as a bird her hand came to rest on his shoulder.

Fenris snarled – he could not help it – and shoved her hand away, whirling on Hawke where she stood, backing away from her down the steps until she could not reach him. "Forever your help," he snapped, stung by the offer, by his wounded pride, longing to leave her heart as heavy and uncertain as his. "Forever you taunt me with your _generosity_. Have this coin, have this room, have these _acquaintances_—" he flung his arm out, mocking, dispelling the memories of her overtures. "How many hooks must you sink into my soul before you are satisfied?"

Hawke's jaw was set, her chin lifted, her left hand fisted in a black shawl pulled tightly around her bare shoulders. "Had I known it would offend you so badly, I would have kept it to myself. I only meant—"

"—to _help_, yes," Fenris sneered, and when he blinked he saw not Hawke's face but a man's, aged, bearded, his mouth marked with the lines of old, cruel smiles. He shook his head and the image vanished. "I have had a thousand offers of _help_ from your kind before, and not once did it mean anything other than my suffering."

Hawke's mouth twisted in sudden hurt, and Fenris could not tell whether it was for herself or for him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. The last thing I wanted tonight was to chase you away. I thought—"

"You did _not _think. You wanted only to display your newest acquisition." He laughed, short and sharp. "And so, knowing what marks my skin, you present me to a room full of dead things."

"The lyrium—"

"—has made me a target for all of my living memory. Lie to yourself if you wish, but I have little interest in throwing my life away for the sake of easing your _conscience_."

"Good God," Hawke said then, crossing her arms, and the frank irritation in her voice was startling enough that Fenris backed down another step. "It's like arguing with a wall. Would you stop interrupting me and _listen?_"

He opened his mouth, but no words came – Hawke glowered at him, and when he still could not find speech he gritted his teeth and nodded.

"I asked you here tonight for a very simple reason. It's not grand, and it's not even particularly altruistic, and it _certainly _has nothing to do with your lyrium." A muscle jumped in her throat but she continued, holding his gaze as if she had her hands to his face. "I just wanted you to meet my friends. My family." Her voice softened. "My sister. And I wanted them to meet you."

Fenris blinked; she shrugged one shoulder, uncomfortable at his open disbelief, and the black shawl slipped to her elbow. "As I said, it wasn't very noble. I only thought that you'd been fighting so well with us that you deserved a chance to…I don't know. See the beast in its natural habitat."

The truth struck him like a thunderbolt.

For several seconds Fenris forgot to breathe, astounded by the revelation, furious that it had taken him so long to realize it. He swallowed once, and then again, and when Hawke met his eyes again he forced himself to find his voice. He said, "You invited me to your home."

Her home, where her sister lived, and where her servants lived, and where _she _lived, where she slept, where she thought herself to be safe – and _him_, Fenris, who had tried to kill her the night they had met, who had never spared her more than acrimony and his blade at her back. She had invited him to her _home_.

He said, his throat dry, "_Why_?"

"Varric would say my natural inclination for dramatic situations."

"The truth."

"You're a good swordsman. A great one. We could use you on a more long-term basis."

"Hawke."

She hesitated, glanced away; then all at once she seemed to come to a decision, drawing in a breath, drawing herself up to face him full on. Somehow, Fenris realized, he had moved back up the stairs towards her until he stood only one step beneath her, until he could see her face and the expression on it. She said, plainly, "I trust you. I'd like you to stay."

_Ah._

He shook his head, amazed. "You trust too easily."

"One of Anders's favorite grievances."

And— "I do not care for many of your friends."

"I'd be disappointed if you did. That would be _too _easy. I just want you not to kill them."

He shook his head again, bewildered, and sighed because he could do little else. "I do not understand you."

"You don't have to," Hawke said, quietly. "Just stay and fight with me."

He watched her face, searching for some hint of that bloodlust he was so familiar with, for the flicker in her eyes that would herald her inevitable betrayal – but there was nothing, no darkness, no hidden snare, only open honesty and a touch of embarrassment as she tugged her shawl over her shoulder again. Fenris was not sure what to do with honesty.

And yet, somehow, he thought he might care to find out.

At last he said, "There are – certain people hunting me. If I remain here, they will come." She nodded; he hesitated, then added, recklessly, "I may eventually need –"

"My help?" Hawke said, and when he smiled she laughed.


	4. Bitter Truths Are Unwillingly Confronted

**Chapter Four**

Bitter Truths Are Unwillingly Confronted

-.-.-

The night is darkening round me,  
The wild winds coldly blow;  
But a tyrant spell has bound me,  
And I cannot, cannot go.

—_The night is darkening round me, _Emily Jane Brontë

-.-.-

They were a cult of blood worshippers who revered a vampire named Hanker; and in the painfully descriptive manner to which Fenris was becoming accustomed they called themselves the Followers of She. They had procured for their use a large warehouse in Whitechapel that looked rather similar to a number of other warehouses in which Fenris had fought recently – indeed, when they'd entered, Hawke had cursed and flipped Isabela a shilling – and as Fenris was also learning to expect, he and his new companions had fought to a clean and decisive victory. He had even been permitted to slay the creature leading them once Hawke had seen her ancient strength, the bodies of three young women splayed lifelessly, bloodlessly, around her.

By the time Isabela had rifled through most of the crates and Bethany had arranged for transport of both the victims and the prisoners, his blood had begun to cool again from the hot thrumming of battle. It was not a _pleasant _feeling – Fenris knew, when he chose to think of it, that he was growing reckless, that he was beginning to trust someone other than himself with his back – but no matter how he prepared for these evenings he lost himself every time to the wild singing rush of death, to the hiss of Hawke's magic at his shoulder, of his sword arcing steel-bright through the air.

It did not help that Hawke encouraged him, he thought, grimacing as he picked blood and flesh from his gauntlets. It had been a month ago this night he'd met her, and despite the roughness of their beginning and his own misgivings, they were beginning to learn the other's habits from exposure if nothing else. He knew Hawke favored fire, favored more leaving those alive whom she could; _she_ knew that he in turn distrusted her friends and disliked hunting in the ever-present fish stink of the docks, and still she offered him a place in her little company almost nightly, without one word of complaint or of censure.

And if he was cruelly, mercilessly honest with himself, Fenris knew that he was beginning to enjoy it.

It was not the bloodshed itself he savored – he had had enough of that to last him lifetimes even before meeting Hawke – but rather the surprise of finding himself with allies, with men and women who were not only competent and capable but who also could read a battlefield, could take in with a glance the whole of the fight and know at once where to guide their next blow. Who did not hesitate to defend a friend despite the danger. He had known objectively that that there must have been those in the world who did not need to fight alone, but now, here, with them named and standing beside him…

There was satisfaction in that.

"That's the last of them," Bethany said, watching the last prison-wagon roll off into the dark. Her rounded hat twirled in her hand. "And not a moment too soon."

Fenris glanced at her as she spun back towards the warehouse, humming softly. He had come to respect Bethany, though he did not _like _her, not quite – she looked too much like her sister when she smiled, and he was not yet prepared to count one of her kind as a _friend_ – but he could acknowledge his preference for her company over that of, say, Anders.

Fenris snorted to himself as he sheathed his cleaned sword. He was quite aware that the feeling was distinctly mutual on Anders's part, and that neither of them had developed any qualms about showing it in the few weeks of their acquaintanceship. He cared little for the man's frequent and voluble demands for wide, sweeping reform in his kind's favor; he knew that Anders cared little for Fenris's own, precisely opposite opinion. That they had not yet drawn weapons – or teeth – on each other was a mark as much of Hawke's pointed diplomacy as anything else.

"Wonderful," Isabela said, coming forward with a spine-cracking stretch that left little of her figure under her low-cut white shirt to the imagination. A blue bandanna kept her thick hair away from her face, and her twin blades rested at each hip, spotless and glinting coolly in the dim light cast by the half-clouded moon. "Are you almost finished in there, Hawke?"

"Just about," came Hawke's voice behind them, and Fenris stood as she emerged at last from the dark warehouse. Her cap sat crooked on her head, her shoulders draped with moldy, moth-eaten scarves and stained gloves, and in her arms she held a number of cracked gemstones and a coil of frayed rope.

"Not _again_," groaned Bethany. "Sister, haven't we talked about this enough already?"

"This could be useful! We'll never know if we don't take it now."

Fenris glanced at the bundle dubiously, then reached out to pull a stiff fall of fabric from her shoulder. "Are these…someone's trousers?"

Hawke pursed her lips and tried to snatch them back, only to nearly lose control of the loose gems and rope still in her arms. "Maybe. Possibly."

"There is a tear in these as long as my arm."

"Yes, well, you – you've got stubby little arms. So they shouldn't take too long to mend."

Fenris lifted an eyebrow, glanced at Isabela, and then without a word hung the torn trousers on the tallest spike of the iron fence behind him. Hawke stared, shocked – and then she _laughed_, shaking her head, lifting one hand to her face, and Fenris could not stop the corner of his mouth from turning up. _Dangerous_, whispered a small, soft voice: _dangerous_, _deadly, be wary, keep up your guard –_ but he could see little danger in the curve of her shoulders, little deadliness in her laugh. "Well, _fine_," she said at last, still shaking her head. "If you won't let me have the trousers, at least hold the bag for these."

"Hawke," he mused thoughtfully, pulling the sack from her elbow and drawing it open. "More magpie, I think."

She laughed again, dumping the whole of her burden into the sack – but as she took it from him her fingers slid suddenly against the place where his gauntlets bared his palm, cool and smooth and slender, and the quick, startled glance she gave him held nothing of amusement. Fenris felt his own smile fade, felt again that sharp whisper of _dangerous_, and drew back his hand without a word. Hawke turned away.

"Anyway," she said to Isabela, her voice light as ever, "if nothing comes of it they might always show up as Christmas Day gifts."

"Not if you plan on my ever sailing you to the Madieras ever again. Oh, but _speaking _of gifts –" she sauntered forward, her earrings gleaming almost as brightly as her eyes, and draped an arm over Fenris's shoulder, "why didn't you _tell _me you were so…talented?"

He pushed her arm away and strode towards Bethany's relatively safe position by the night-darkened street. "It was unwillingly learned."

"But masterfully implemented. You could make _so _much coin with that."

"Do stop, Isabela," said Bethany as they followed, but she was smiling too. "And you wonder why this is the first time you've ever fought alongside Fenris."

"I do wonder," Isabela said, her gaze open and appreciative in spite of Fenris's glare and crossed arms. "It seems like such a waste."

Hawke stepped past her to reach her sister, bumping Isabela's hip with her gem-laden sack. "If I could trust you not to leer at everything on two legs, I might bring you along more often."

"Don't worry, Fenris. I save my special leers for you."

"Do not wait for my gratitude," he said sharply, though Isabela's grin did not waver, and turned westward without waiting for the others to follow. The clouds were thickening overhead, darkening the streets further, and if they did not move quickly it would soon be too dark for them to see. Their rendezvous point with Bodahn was two streets over for his safety, and Fenris found himself eager to be free of all three women for the sake of his pride if nothing else.

The fact that he was beginning to enjoy to their company despite their teasing did not escape him either.

Then, suddenly, behind him: "Isabela, you're wounded."

"What? No, I'm not."

"You are. Look, you're bleeding."

Fenris turned. Bethany had bent over behind Isabela, her hands somewhere near Isabela's waist; Isabela herself was twisted to look over her shoulder. "I don't feel a thing."

"You don't feel that?"

"_Ow!_"

"There," said Bethany, straightening, and for a moment her eyes flicked to her sister's beside her. Hawke shook her head, stepping back without words, and Fenris realized – Isabela was bleeding. Isabela was bleeding in front of two creatures who took human blood as sustenance. Lyrium-song whispered along his fingers, begging to be released, but – not yet. Not until he knew—

"Have you got anything left?" Hawke asked, her voice low and tight, and Bethany shook her head.

"Not much. I used it all against those cultists."

"Me neither. All right," said Hawke, looking to her left. "Anders it is."

-.-.-

The clinic was a small, battered building made of dark grey brick and moldering mortar, wedged between a cemetery and an inn almost up to the lofty standards of The Broken Longsword. Whitechapel itself was not particularly welcoming; the location Anders had chosen was even less so, with nearly every window in sight either broken or heavily-shuttered against both the night and the creatures that walked it. Glass broke somewhere a street over, followed by a short, choked-off cry; Bethany looked over nervously from where she walked with Hawke in the lead, but Isabela, leaning heavily on Fenris, did little more than let out a curse and press her hand more tightly against her back.

Hawke rapped hard on the heavy iron-and-wood door. There was a small glass lantern lit above it, swaying anxiously in the pre-rain winds, and the pale and wavering light that spilled from it was the only relief from darkness along the entire street. It lit Hawke's face in a cool, faint glow, flickering as if she were underwater, but even so Fenris could see that her eyes were hard and worried.

She knocked again. There was a loud thump from inside, as if someone had fallen from a bed; then three heavy footfalls and a voice at the door. "What is it?"

"Emergency, Anders," Hawke said crisply, and they heard the slide of three separate locks before she had even finished speaking. Anders stood in the doorway in the same shabby brown vest Fenris remembered, his hair loose and his tie gone, but his eyes were clear as he ushered them inside.

The clinic's facade might have been worn, but the interior was spotless, a small row of neat white gurney-beds lined up against one wall and pristine cabinets full of medical equipment and medicine across from them. An open door on the far side let into what appeared to be a small office, though Fenris suspected from the half-glimpse of a cot jammed against the wall that it served double as bedchamber on long nights. Two electric lamps dangled from the raftered ceiling, their light dim and unforgiving.

"Isabela got caught."

"A little nick," she protested as she stepped forward at Anders's beckon, but Fenris could see the slow-spreading stain on her back between her fingers. Anders shook his head and shepherded her to one of the white gurneys, helping her to lie down on her stomach as Bethany fetched gauze and a little black kit from one of the cabinets. A number of little blue bottles were arrayed behind it, all labeled and dated in an incomprehensible shorthand, and a battered stethoscope hung neatly from a hook inside the door.

"Are you safe?" Anders asked the room in general without looking up, his fingers busy at Isabela's waist, and there was something heavy in that question, something loaded with a hunger not meant for mortal understanding.

Bethany moved to the gurney's other side, laying the kit and gauze at Isabela's hip within Anders's easy reach. "Yes," she told him, glancing up for her sister's nod. "We both are." Anders gave Bethany a brief, warm smile, then without ceremony pulled Isabela's shirt from her belt, though Fenris did not miss the lingering brush his fingers gave the darkened bloodstain on the fabric.

"Not even dinner first?" Isabela asked, her voice muffled in the pillow. Fenris averted his eyes.

"You say that every time," Anders said, already smoothing a white-bleached cloth over Isabela's back to clean the long but shallow wound, to wipe the spilled blood from the expanse of warm, dark skin bared to open air. "And every time it still isn't funny. But you're fortunate tonight – this isn't bad at all."

"Hurts like the damned knife's still in there."

"I'm not surprised. Hold still."

Isabela griped a few minutes more, then subsided. It took little time to dress the wound and stitch it closed; then Anders and Bethany both laid their hands atop it, fingers glimmering blue. Fenris looked away, feeling the familiar pull on his lyrium – and found Hawke instead leaning back against the door, her arms crossed over her chest, her mouth taut. Her face was pale – paler than usual – and her dark hair was slipping free from under her cap – and as if she'd felt his scrutiny her gaze jerked to his, and Fenris grimaced.

She mirrored the expression. "Sorry," she said quietly, in an effort not to disturb either Anders or her sister. "I'm not – fond of hospitals."

"I see."

"It's foolish. Just an old aversion." A corner of Hawke's mouth turned up in a bitter smile. "It just seems like every time I set foot in one, someone's dead or dying."

Fenris hesitated, then said again, "I see." Hawke closed her eyes and he – wished he could think of something better to say, but soon enough the blue light faded and Isabela let out a relieved sigh, and the moment was gone. Anders tore off a strip of white tape with his teeth, placing it over the bandage Bethany laid in place. Then he helped Isabela up, who winced only once as she straightened, and by the time she was on her feet again she looked quite herself.

"Now take it slow the next few days," Anders told her, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "Nothing strenuous. And I want you back in two days to take the stitches out."

"_Como usted dice_," Isabela purred, her hand trailing across Anders's chest as she sashayed towards the door. "You know how I feel about your magic touch."

Anders laughed, a tired sound, and threw the last of the bloodied gauze and rags into a metal washbasin reeking of disinfectant. Hawke grimaced. "As if you ever listen to me," he said.

"I'm listening. Now, let's go get drunk."

Hawke smiled for the first time in a long time, and Isabela grinned as she tucked the arm on her good side around Bethany's waist. "That's what I like to see. Are you coming, Anders?"

"I don't think so. I have some work I—"

"Oh, stop it. You know you want to come. Doesn't he, Bethany?"

Bethany _flinched_, small enough and quick enough that Fenris would not have caught it had he not already been looking at her; her eyes flicked to Anders and away, and she swallowed and said, "You're welcome, if you like."

Silence hung in the air a moment, awkward and thick, and then Anders sighed. "One drink."

"Whatever you say, sparklefingers." Isabela slung her free arm around Anders's shoulder when he joined them, careful not to strain her fresh stitches, and the three of them were out the door without another word. Hawke watched them go; then she turned to Fenris, her eyebrows raised in both disbelief and reluctant acquiescence, and when he shrugged the two of them followed silently after the others. Hawke paused to lock the door behind them – and Fenris refused to allow himself to wonder why she had a key – and, with a last glance upward, she sighed and stepped off into the night. Fenris followed her gaze, just for a moment, and blinked.

Painted above the door, just inside the fall of light from the little lamp, were the cracked and golden scales of Justice.

-.-.-

One drink became two became four, and by the wee hours of the morning Fenris had quite forgotten both that brief struck-flint moment with Hawke outside the warehouse and the colder look in her face at the clinic. The little crowd that had inhabited The Hanged Man upon their arrival had slowly trickled away over the course of the evening, all but a few departing for warmer homes and quieter company despite the light rain that had begun to fall just after midnight. The few that remained were either nearing drunk or long past it, including a blonde man in an ostentatiously expensive evening coat who was doing his level best to attract the attention of the barmaid. He'd used to work behind the bar, Varric told Fenris, before managing to publish a series of semi-scientific papers entitled _A Treatise on the Aerial Velocity of Certain Winged Mammals, Mythological and Otherwise._

"Is he bothering you, Norah?" asked Hawke as the dark-haired woman passed, one hand propping a laden tray against her hip.

Norah snorted and placed a tumbler of whiskey and a fresh bottle of red wine on the table, slopping the whiskey over its rim. Across from Hawke, Varric winced. "No need to worry about him, my lady," she said, tossing her head. "The day comes I can't handle old Corff is the day I hang up my apron and jump in the river."

Fenris lifted an eyebrow as she headed back to the bar, and Varric leaned back in his chair. "Give a man a griffon," he said meditatively, "and he'll take all of high society on a ride."

Hawke propped her chin on her hand. "I thought you said he spread rumors like a fishwife."

"Turns out his prattle's better than his prose. There's only so much editing I can do for source material that uses 'as such' like punctuation."

"You could let someone else manage his work."

"No, no," Varric said, waving a hand. "Everyone thinks he's brilliant – no need to inflict the raw material on some poor slob who'll prove otherwise. Besides, this way I get the byline with none of the responsibility of research."

"Your altruism is so inspiring."

"You have no idea."

Fenris and Hawke turned as one to watch Corff in lieu of answering – what could one possibly say to that? – and when Norah turned up her nose again, Corff slid dejectedly from the bar and slumped towards the door, not once noticing his rapt audience. The little bell let out a plaintive ding as the door closed behind him, and at last Fenris said, "Fascinating."

"Don't worry about him," Varric suggested, topping off his squat glass with something amber. "He won't even remember this in the morning. Hopefully, neither will I."

Isabela let out a raucous laugh from the other end of the table where she sat with Anders and Bethany, both of them smiling but flushed with drink and discomfort. Isabela had changed into a clean shirt that fit just as snugly as the old, and her hair was falling in loose waves around her shoulders from how frequently she ran her fingers through it. Anders's hat had been upturned to collect loose pence for some sort of betting game two drinks ago; now it lay forgotten, scattered amidst the empty glasses, a dingy tweed match to its master beside it. Bethany, though, did not seem to care about its fraying threads; even as Fenris watched she furrowed her brow in tipsy confusion, then stretched out a forefinger and flicked a speck of dirt from the brim before smiling at her own effort.

Fenris found himself watching them without meaning to, lazily, his muscles loose, his vision blurred and soft from the wine and the singular headiness of knowing himself to be not only impaired, but impaired in the presence of those he would have once killed without a thought. Anders and Bethany seemed just as maladroit themselves, though not nearly as aware of it. One of them would lean towards Isabela and the other would shift away and lift a glass in transparent excuse; Isabela would answer, return a question, and their positions would reverse. In a way it reminded him of an old-fashioned dance, the delicate, intricate steps circling the partners around each other with only the slightest brush of hands in passing.

Hands that had not seen sunlight in years, Fenris reminded himself, though the thought caused him less distress than he had expected. Isabela murmured something with a wink and Bethany giggled, covering her mouth with her fingers as Anders sighed in chagrin, and Fenris shook his head before draining his glass.

"Another?"

It was folly to notice. It made him a greater fool to _care_, to wonder what exactly had transpired there, to want not their deaths but their histories as if they might be worthy of the telling. Hawke would tell him, he thought suddenly, if he asked. Hawke would—

Wave her hand in front of his face, her fingers in his wine-hazed vision turning from five to eight. "Fenris?"

"What?" said Fenris, starting, and his elbow knocked the half-empty bottle of wine from Hawke's grasp. They both reached for it at the same moment; Hawke got there first, and Fenris withdrew his hand before it could again brush over hers.

"Easy," she said, replacing the bottle on the table between them. "No need to redecorate the tables with perfectly good wine."

"Excuse me," he said stiffly, chagrined at both his inattention and his gracelessness. She smiled in response, and Fenris abruptly realized that without his noticing, Varric had slipped away from the table and vanished.

Hawke saw his look. "He went off to tend to Bianca. Said she needed a good tuning – I didn't ask. I was just wondering if you'd care for another glass… but perhaps that'd best be saved for another time."

"Perhaps," said Fenris, grudging her the observation but aware she was correct. At the other end of the table Isabela had produced a deck of faded cards from some inexplicable, hidden pocket, and she and Anders were trying to teach Bethany some sort of game that involved matching and careful addition. Bethany was laughing, hopelessly lost but still making the attempt with good cheer; Anders seemed to have trouble even bringing his cards into focus, squinting furiously against the dimness of the room.

It was altogether too comfortable to bear.

Fenris shook his head to clear it and stood, bracing himself only a moment on the table before his balance returned, ignoring Hawke's face upturned in surprise. The window seemed like a better place to stand than the pub proper – the candleflame behind Norah at the bar smeared and dipped across his vision like paint on a canvas, and Isabela's tuneless humming as she collected a little stack of shillings from Anders filled his ears like cotton. His feet were steady under him, though, and the floor promisingly level, and by the time he reached the large glass window that overlooked the quiet street he felt, if not quite himself, at least closer to sensibility.

"Are you all right?"

Hawke's voice was soft, amused from the table, and when he did not respond her heard her chair scrape across the floor as she rose and came to stand at his shoulder. He did not look at her; instead he watched the fractured play of lamplight in the raindrops spattering the outside of the window, splintering his reflection into pieces. Here he could see a flash of white hair; here was the dark shoulder of his coat; here was the glimpse of a lyrium-line trailing over his chin, split into two and then six and then a dozen as a sudden wind gusted rain against the other side of the glass.

"I am careless," he said at last.

"You're only drunk."

"It is not the same thing."

"Isn't it?"

He looked at her then, at her pale face turned to his, at the delicate play of shadow thrown over her cheek by rainwater and the window's painted lettering. He did not know if it was her expression or the wine or the lingering wildness of battle; but his mouth opened and he said, "I often served wine at my master's table."

Hawke, her gaze compassionate and unaffected by his shift of subject, did not try to speak; emboldened, Fenris continued. "I frightened his guests. He enjoyed that. This—" he added in explanation with a vague gesture at their surroundings, "—I am reminded of it. That is all."

"I remember Rome to be a little cleaner. And to have more…hm. Columns."

Fenris snorted, shook his head. "The _wine_, Hawke. Battle. Blood. Few of my memories of Danarius do not involve at least one of those."

"He doesn't sound like a terribly kind host."

"No living soul could accuse him of kindness."

"No dead ones either, I gather," Hawke said lightly, and Fenris smiled without mirth. "Was it he who gave you those markings?"

Her eyes dropped to his chin and he turned again to the window, his jaw tight, his hands clenched at his sides. "It was."

"I've never seen so much lyrium in one place. It must have cost a fortune."

She said it practically, her voice matter-of-fact; he followed in the same vein and found it easier to speak than he had expected. "It was beyond price. On both his part and mine."

"You must have thought it worth the expense, though."

"At the time I did. There is little before the ritual and – pain." He shook his head, dispersing the memories into the rain-softened night. "I do not often care to think of it."

"It doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant thing to think of. May I – is it all right—" she hesitated, and Fenris looked at her, surprised by her sudden ineloquence. Hawke blew out a breath that stirred her hair, then said all at once, "What did the ritual entail?"

She looked as though she expected him to snarl at her for the impertinence, but Fenris found he did not mind to answer. "You have heard of the philosopher's stone."

"Well, yes. It – was supposed to turn base metals into gold. It gave us lyrium instead. The elixir of life." She paused, then added ruefully, "Life of sorts, I suppose."

"A useful tool for your kind," Fenris said, turning back to the window and the rain beyond it. A pair of policemen hurried by, little more than tall grey blurs in the steady downpour, sodden newspapers draped over their heads in useless defense against the weather. "But a finite one. And expensive. And my master was a man who would tolerate a dependence on neither of those things."

He felt more than heard her indrawn breath, saw her gaze drop abruptly to his chin, to his collar, to the hollow under his jaw where a curl of lyrium peeped out to mark the place where the veins of his throat began. Danarius had always chafed at the restrictions of his curse, he told her; at the necessity of feeding every few days on his victims, willing or no; at the tether it had made of his sequestered villa in Rome, trapping him among his possessions for want of strength and of blood. Then the lyrium had come in boxes of tiny glass bottles stoppered with corks, easing the unrelenting thirst, strengthening the blood he took with it until he could pass ten days without feeding, twelve days, a fortnight. But the supply was irregular, inconstant in its price and its purity, and Danarius had searched for a better way, a method of preserving the precious elixir in something that would renew it, that would _live_.

And so Fenris had been made.

Hawke stared at him as if she could see his bared skin beneath his jacket, could trace the whorls and dots of lyrium that spiraled down his throat, that marked the lines of his wrists and thighs, that delicately mapped every major vein in his body. A tool indeed: a perfect plaything for her and for her kind, life extended as unnaturally as theirs for as long as he was needed, as the lyrium in his skin was needed. Danarius had ensured it.

She shook her head slowly, her eyes wide; then she said, so quietly he barely heard it over the hushing of rain against glass, "That is – abhorrent."

"I do not wish for your pity," he snapped, stung, and heard a sudden lull in the card game behind him. Stiffly he turned again to the window; Hawke made a motion at her side and the game resumed.

"Not all sympathy hides condescension," she said, her voice edged. "I can be appalled at your suffering without thinking the less of you for it."

"For allowing it, you mean."

"I don't presume to know anything of your reasons. Those are yours and yours alone."

Fenris turned on her, irritated at her composure, irritated at himself for his lack of it, desperate for her to grasp that a slave's willingness had precious little to do with choice. "He was my home. He owned me. Do you understand?"

"Only a little," she admitted, her hands linking together at her waist. "I have seen – something of slavery before. But Fenris, we can talk of something else if you want. I didn't mean to upset you."

He shifted his weight away from her, gritting his teeth, but – he knew that to be true, knew his deep-rooted shame to be something of his own making and not of hers. "I – apologize," he said, though the words tasted like ashes. "This is not a subject I am accustomed to discussing."

"So I gathered," Hawke said with a wry smile. "I take it this is the man who's chasing you."

"Just so. He has followed me for – some time." Fenris paused, counting back the seasons; then he said, surprised, "Ten years."

"A long time indeed. At least he's persistent."

"In such a case as this, I would prefer inconstancy."

His voice was dry, and Hawke laughed as if she were surprised to be doing so. A reluctant smile flitted across his mouth before he could stop it; Hawke laughed again, delighted, and smoothed a hand over her hair. "Well," she said, "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Figuratively speaking, I mean. Running water. You know how it is."

"I was in his service for twelve years. I did manage to glean certain truths in that time."

"Ah, well. Wonderful. A lady does so enjoy having no secrets to reveal."

"I do not know your sister well enough to say."

"Cad! You cut me to the heart, sir."

Fenris glanced at his hands where they rested on the windowsill. "Not yet."

"How fortunate for us both," Hawke said, but her eyes were alight with good humor, her mouth turned up in a wide, genuine smile. She was not so far from beauty as he had first thought, Fenris realized; her nose suited her after all, and if her jaw had been narrower it would have moved her face beyond delicate and into weak. The shadows of rain still slid down her cheek; she tilted her head at his scrutiny and passed a hand across her mouth, as if searching for a flaw or a forgotten crumb—

There was a dark stain on her wrist.

Without thinking, Fenris lifted a hand to touch it, crumbling between his fingers a bit of the dried, crusted streak that trailed along the cuff of her white shirtwaist to the outside of her knuckle. A bit of it fell to the floor; the rest of it smeared to red dust under the rub of his thumb. Hawke stared at his hand, riveted, her lips parted – and all at once Fenris realized what stained his skin.

He said, "This is blood."

She drew in a breath that was ragged with hunger, the hand over her mouth trembling. Her laughter was gone as if it had never been; her shoulders curved in as if she stood in the rain herself. A muscle in her throat jumped as she swallowed, as she made a quick, involuntary movement towards him, swaying like a drunkard. Fenris stared, and even as he stared her eyes, still fixed on his blood-touched fingers, grew abruptly black.

"You lied," he said, and it came out a hiss. _You lied to Anders. To your sister. _

_You lied to me._

All at once the easy camaraderie was vanished; all at once the air shifted from contented to contentious. "Don't look as if I've betrayed you," Hawke said sharply, though there was a shiver in her voice like a stone-choked stream. "If I were so desperate I would have taken Isabela at the warehouse."

"A fine sentiment when a bit of dried blood is enough to bare your teeth."

She did bare them at him then, a flash of long, long canines, white between red lips. "I have lived this curse every day for a quarter of a century," she snapped, her voice low and dangerous and hard as iron, "without the aid of any of your precious lyrium to sate it. Believe me when I say I am _intimately _familiar with my own limitations."

"Your kind always are," Fenris said, mocking, derisive, desperate to ignore the lyrium sizzling across his veins in response to Hawke's open need, "until the bodies fall around you."

"The insults do you no credit, my dear Lord Disdain. Or do you always treat your friends with such vitriol?"

He let out a short, brittle laugh. "Only when they pretend the viper in their midst is human."

Hawke jerked back as if he had struck her, her eyes narrowed and _hurt_ – then she snarled, "Have it your own way," and shoved past him in a whirl of black hair. Four quick steps and she was gone, the bell beside the door dinging wildly as it slammed open against the wall. Rain burst through the doorway as if it had waited all night for the opportunity, putting out both lamps in the entryway and scattering cards all over the floor; Bethany and Isabela were on their feet at the table, saying something, asking something, but he ignored them all, ignored even the flicker of magic behind Anders's eyes. Vampire she might have been; angry he might have been; she was also out in the darkened London streets alone.

_Hypocrite! Dangerous – so dangerous –_

Fenris set his jaw and stormed out into the rain.


	5. One Party Chases the Other

**Chapter Five**

One Party Chases the Other

-.-.-

Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.

—Deuteronomy 12:23

-.-.-

Hawke was quick, but Fenris had spent the last decade of his life perfecting exactly this flight and pursuit, and despite the steady drizzling rain he had little difficulty spotting her slender figure halfway down the street. She clearly had not expected him to follow her – her back was to The Hanged Man, a flickering street lamp throwing a dim fall of orange light down her rain-streaked shoulder, and with her hat still on the table inside The Hanged Man her already-soaked hair hung heavily on her neck. She moved with purpose, looking neither right nor left, her steps loud in the splash of puddles.

Fenris moved swiftly after her, careful to keep his own feet as quiet as he could, careful to avoid all but the dimmest places on the rain-glittered street in his silent chase. He did not know—

_Wrong_, whispered that voice again, _leave her be – you chased her here, you know this grows dangerous –_

Ahead, in the dark place between two lamps, Hawke vanished into mist.

Fenris bit back a curse and ducked sideways into the relative obscurity of an unlit shopfront – and then she reappeared, farther down the street, a flash of pale skin and ink-black hair in a corner where a black gutter spewed forth a torrent of dirty runoff behind her head. She paused for a breath, turning to glance behind her, and then she was gone again, and Fenris was gone after her.

She flitted from shadow to shadow like a wraith, leaving nothing but gasps of mist behind her that vanished swiftly into the rain. Twice Fenris nearly lost her, once to a narrow alley and once to a tavern's sudden spill of singing, drunken revelers which passed between him and his quarry – but quarry she was, whether or not she was aware of it, and if Fenris knew nothing else he knew the hunt. So she ran and he hunted her, following her ever northward through winding, silent streets, splashing at each step, as little concerned with the darkened windows ghosting by as the cold rain sliding fingerlike down his neck.

He could not name the reason that he followed her. It was more than curiosity, more than simple want, more even than the half-thought of protecting her that had sent him from The Hanged Man into the rain; dreamlike, he needed truth in the way he needed air, needed to know what drove him to her at the same time it drove him against her like a wave tearing uselessly at a cliff. He was not unfamiliar with futility – he had known the sense of it better than his name for over a decade – but there was an answer to be had here, _somewhere,_ if he could only discern where to look.

They reached the Thames all at once, a black, churning ribbon that swathed across their path. Hawke did not seem to notice it – she turned without hesitation to keep the rain-frothed river to her left, her face lifted to the small stone buildings that lined the cramped lane, their heavy barred doors and shuttered windows stained with smoke and brackish river-spray. All of them were dark save one, a larger, two-storied house tucked into the end of the lane with a single candle burning in an upper window, visible even through the straight sheets of grey rain. Hawke's pace quickened when she spotted it and Fenris's behind her, and then she was there at the door, pressed close against it as if to shield herself from the weather that had already soaked her through. She knocked hard, waited, her forehead against the wood and her eyes closed – and a moment later the door opened and a man's tenor answered, thick with sleep and surprise.

Fenris slid into a shadow by a wall two houses down, at once bewildered and furious, disconcerted by his own reactions and irritated that he seemed to care at all. Hawke's nights were hardly his business – he fought alongside her, nothing more, and he _wanted _nothing more – had he not made that clear to himself tonight? – but his pulse was racing all the same, his hands fisted at his sides, a place deep in his chest bruised and tender as if he had been struck a blow.

A fragile smile flitted across Hawke's face at the answer of whoever stood inside, and a moment later she had disappeared into the house. Fenris stood where he was, shaking rainwater from his hair, caught in an agony of indecision – but he had driven her here and he had come this far after her, and if the truth she kept here was terrible enough to hide so secretly it was better for him to know now, better for him to face this moment without flinching, to cut the ties that bound him to her before they caught too deeply to tear free. Somehow his feet were moving; somehow his hand was reaching out –

The door was not locked.

Fenris stepped inside, silent, wary, one hand on the pistol at his waist. His sword he had put away the moment they had reached The Hanged Man – he regretted that now, missing the heavy security of the blade at his back. Water dripped from the ends of his hair, his chin, the hem of his coat; a similar trail lay at his feet, damp patches in the Persian carpet marking where Hawke had followed after her – host. At his elbow there was a sideboard inlaid with silver, and atop it in a vase was a fresh-cut blooming rose.

The first floor was dark, the small foyer letting off into a number of unlit rooms on either side; with what faint light trickled in from the street he could half-see the shapes of couches and low chaises crammed around scratched, unlevel tables. White-painted doors blocked his view past those rooms and at the end of the foyer, but he was little interested in them – Hawke's trail led up the narrow stairs to the darkened second floor, into the faint light of the single candle that flickered with every breath.

He moved up the carpet-muffled stairs without hesitating, turned left. He could hear Hawke's voice now, low and desperate, and the soothing response of the stranger in answer. One door stood open at the end of the hall; it was from here the light came, and the voices came, and in the dazed, unreasoning certainty of a dream his feet carried him forward to meet it.

The bedroom was small but well-appointed, neat and dusted and smelling of sage. A slight, fine-boned man sat on the edge of the gold-embroidered coverlet, his long red hair braided half-away from his face, his hands fisted in the rich fabric at his knees; and behind him on the bed knelt Hawke, the pale fingers of one hand twined into the man's hair below his ear to tilt his head away, her other arm wrapped gently over his bared, hairless chest to hold him still. Her eyes were closed, her breathing ragged, and as Fenris watched in mute and surreal immobility she let out a long, slow, satisfied sigh, and –

Her sharp teeth sank into his throat.

The man let out a soft and wanton moan as his fingers tightened in the bedspread. His throat rippled as he swallowed and Hawke inhaled sharply against his skin, and then her teeth slid free and her lips closed gently over the place where she had marked him, as if in both gratitude and apology, and she drank.

Fenris could not move. Could barely breathe, the bruised place in his chest expanding, tightening around his lungs like a band of iron. This was at once unreal and the truest thing he had ever seen: _here_ was Hawke as she was, stripped of the careful mask she wore in his presence – _here _was the truth of her nature, her mouth closed on another's throat, sucking from another's veins the lifeblood she needed to survive.

Every line of her figure seemed sharp as glass. Her shoulders were curved high and tight as she began, then lowered unevenly with each draw; her white shirtwaist was made whiter by the darkness of her sodden vest, by her damp black hair, by the blacker shadows that seemed to gather at her back. The weak candlelight dipped and pooled on her cheek as it hollowed, as her lips lifted and then resettled more firmly on the man's neck. With every passing second color bled into her cheeks, to her fingertips, to the skin of her throat; with every swallow the tension in her muscles bled to a gentler, exhausted relief. The man himself seemed as absorbed in Hawke's work as she; when her weight shifted on the bed he followed blindly, bending his head to keep as much of his throat at her mouth as he could; and when she relaxed her grip on his shoulder to something softer than restraint he gave a murmured groan of approval – and of familiarity.

She had done this before.

Fenris did not know how long he stood there. He did not think he made a sound – he certainly could not speak – but suddenly the man's brilliant blue eyes flew open. His glazed stare travelled over Fenris's struck form at first without interest, and then with abrupt realization, and one of his hands came up to wrap around Hawke's slender, bared wrist.

"Ugh," he said, and a distant, wild part of Fenris's mind realized that the disgust in his voice was for _him_, "darling, I _hate_ to interrupt, but – there seems to be a wolf at the door."

Hawke did not respond at first; then, slowly, she drew away, straightened, her hand still threaded into the man's hair, and Fenris knew in stark surety that he would remember the way Hawke looked then for the rest of his life.

Gone was the smiling woman from the window of The Hanged Man; gone was the glimpse of loveliness he had caught in the shadow of the rain. Her dark hair was unbound, sliding loose and dripping over her neck and her shoulders, trailing wet lines in the brown wool of her vest, and a damp tendril was plastered to her flushing cheek where it had been pressed against the man's jaw. Her eyes were black, startling and large in her face, so naked with hunger that Fenris thought she might devour him where he stood. Her teeth had gone long as a cat's and pointed, gleaming white like bone; and from the corner of her stained, parted lips there slid a wine-dark bead of blood.

The black eyes fixed on his face like an arrow, pinning him ruthlessly and without recognition. The reddened mouth closed, opened again, and she blinked; then she said, her voice as rough as if she had been screaming, "Fenris?"

He staggered back, the sound of his name in that voice and in this place shattering his paralysis; her eyes cleared on his face and she recoiled, throwing a hand over her mouth, smearing the dribble of blood across her cheek and the bridge of her nose with her fingers. "Damn you!" she cried, and the slight man rose, astonished, to stand between them, but Hawke stumbled from the bed to meet Fenris in the doorway, her eyes black with anger now as well as lust. "What were you _thinking _coming here?"

"You—" he said, his words torn from his throat as if she had dragged them out. "You fled. I – followed you—"

"To _this_?" Hawke snapped, spreading a hand at the room and the man who stood behind her, unoffended, a cloth held to his neck. "To see the thing I turn into when I lose myself?" She crushed the heels of her hands against her eyes and tore them away again, and in the blackness he thought he saw the sheen of standing tears. "_Damn _you, Fenris!"

He took another step back, swallowing through his numbness into anger. "I should have known you were hiding something like this – like _him_—"

"Jethann is an old friend," Hawke snapped, and the man behind her gave a prim, forceful nod, "who has been generous enough to offer me his help in times of emergency."

"_Generous_," Fenris said contemptuously, because there was refuge in contempt, because there was safety in hate. "Generous indeed. How fortunate you have his blood to buy."

Jethann crossed his arms, baring the pinprick wounds on his throat to open air. "You couldn't afford me, honey."

"Is this what you came here for?" Hawke curled her lip to bare a white, sharpened canine. "My debasement? To throw your censure on me where I have no choice but to accept it?"

No _choice_— "You cannot pretend this is your ideal solution_._"

"I don't kill. I don't feed from unwilling victims. I do what I must to survive and compensate for it where I can and _still _you are not satisfied!"

"What satisfaction is there to be had in _this_?"

"Life is not enough?"

"This is no life!"

"I will not kill myself for your prejudices, Fenris!" she snarled, and it was as if she had slapped him across the face.

He stepped back again, found the wall against his shoulder. Hawke stood in the doorway before him, her head thrown back, limned in pale, fragile light, defiance in her eyes and blood on her mouth like a barbarian warrior rising against her tormenter. He could hardly find his voice, could not find at all the mercurial anger that had spurred him so hard to her heels. "That is not what I meant," he managed, but the words were ghosts of themselves.

"Do explain," Hawke said, her voice as sharp and thin as a blade, and Fenris realized that Hawke was furious—was more than furious—

Hawke was ashamed of herself, and Hawke was furious _at_ _him_. The realization stunned him, silenced what few excuses he had remaining. He had not thought her patience could ever run dry – had not thought this first sight of her raw anger would be _his _doing, would be_ his _to claim. There was power in that, he knew, voiceless, wordless – and there was shame in that, too. He had not expected this.

He had not _wanted_ this.

Fenris tore his eyes away, unable to bear a moment longer her accusations and her hurt. "I cannot," he said, too late and too empty, an insufficient excuse for an offense he hardly comprehended. Hawke stepped forward, her mouth opening; he said, shortly, "My apologies," and before she could either curse him or pull him back to face her he strode swiftly for the stairs. She called his name in livid anger; he ignored her, ignored the man's voice murmuring, "Oh, I don't like him at _all_," as he stumbled down the stairwell, struggling for the front door over a floor that seemed to pitch and roll as it had not even under the influence of the wine.

The cold night air helped some; the rain helped further, soothing the hot flush of his face in long, sweeping eddies of water and wind. Rivulets trickled from his hair and over his eyes, blinding him, masking the world in smudges of grey shadow. The ache in his chest was a physical thing, a fist clenched round his heart – he felt as though he'd broken something he hadn't known he held, something he ought to have kept, ought to have—

He closed his eyes, trying to block out the sound of Hawke's voice murmuring his name – and saw her face instead as it had burned into his mind, her eyes black, her hand twisted into red hair, the blood sliding from her lips as she drew them from a slender throat. The river rolled by him in perfect unconcern as he stumbled along it, the drizzle still flurrying its surface into froth, drumming and rumbling against its stone banks with the echoes of distant thunder.

_Long fingers, too many hard rings, a cold palm sliding up his bare spine and over his shoulder to wrap slowly, slowly around his neck—_

Fenris shuddered, moving towards the waist-high stone wall that guarded the river and gripping it with both hands like a man trying not to slip from a cliff. Rain slid from his hair into his eyes and he shook his head fiercely, but the memories were already there, a black flood-river of his own mind's creation rising to swallow him whole.

_A cool, imperious voice at his ear, low with laughter: "Have you missed me, my pet?" and his own in answer so rough he could barely recognize it: "Master, _yes—_"_

_And the fingers tightening, cutting off his air, twisting his head sharply to the side as the blade-tips of teeth traced over the vein of his throat, teasing, tensing, scraping him raw as he strained to breathe and strained to reach that promise of touch – and then – at last! – the sudden bright glint of pain. There was relief in that pain, in the shiver of agony that ran from head to heel and raised gooseflesh on his skin; there was euphoria in the heavy pressure at his throat. He was needed here, valued here; he _belonged_ here, on his knees, his master's hand on his throat and his tongue on his pulse, marking out the beat of the heart and the veins and the life that belonged only to him, only ever, ever to him—_

His hands tightened on the rail. His gauntlets were back at the Hanged Man, safe with his sword, and the stone bit into his bare fingers – Fenris closed his eyes and focused solely on that, driving back one memory of pain with another, counting to five and then ten and then fifty until his mind was quiet, until there was no ghost of a face with glittering eyes or a hand with glittering rings to haunt him.

_And if the face were not Danarius's?_

The thought came quietly, faintly, like a whisper from another world. If it had been louder he could have dismissed it; if it had been clearer he would have known to crush it ruthlessly before it could take root. But as it was he had no warning, no recourse, no chance to defend against the glancing thought of a different face there – of _Hawke's_ face, and Hawke's smile, and Hawke's hands moving gently over his arms, his shoulders. She _would _be gentler, he realized, unexpectedly certain in the thought, gentler in both touch and intent, and even if she were not he thought he knew her well enough to judge that if he asked her she would—

_Stop!_

Fenris cursed aloud, then again more viciously, and shoved away from the rail to stride blindly into the rain-soaked streets in a rough retracing of his original path, of when he'd first thought to follow Hawke to the truth. Dangerous in more ways than one, it seemed, and if he could not ignore his memories or shut away his dreams he knew he could outrun them – in _that, _at least, he was well-practiced. He did not know where he was heading – he only knew he wanted to be _gone_, as far from this place and from the woman he'd followed here as he could, as far from the knowledge that he could not keep past from present as possible—

A splashing footstep behind him split the night like shattering glass.

He tensed mid-step—a man swore, low and brutal, and snapped, "_Take him_."

Fenris spun, fumbling wildly for his revolver at his waist. Rain sliced across his vision in grey sheets to obscure the figures darting towards him – three – no, four – he leveled the Remington and lit the street with two quick muzzle reports. One of the figures recoiled with a cry – he caught a glimpse of sharp white teeth before the figure crumpled – and then the others were on him.

For several seconds there was no sound but rain and gasping breaths and the blunt impacts of flesh on flesh. Lyrium-light billowed down his arms to set the face of the nearest one aglow; it was a young-looking man holding a knife, with brown hair and an aquiline nose and a mouth that opened in a soundless scream as Fenris reached into his chest and tore free his heart.

Flame ripped an abrupt streak down his back from shoulder to hip. Fenris cried out and stumbled forward, barely managing to keep enough of his senses to turn and fire again as he did so. One of the creatures flickered sideways out of the bullet's path, laughing, his hands alight in flame before he vanished into mist – the other blew towards him on a shadow's edge with her hands reaching forward, a length of wire as thin as a scream stretched between them. Fenris took two more steps backwards towards the stone rail and lifted the revolver – and an arm in a black dinner jacket closed around his throat.

Fenris gasped, choked, reached blindly over his shoulder; his fingers clawed over hair and eyes and the man holding him let out an oath but tightened his grip. The world came in sharp flashes of sound and lightning: the woman with the pale hair reaching for him with her wire – the arm closing off his air, rainwater beading on the fine black wool under his chin – and the acrid scent of lyrium burning in his skin as he faded to a ghost.

The man behind him cursed again and grabbed at air, but Fenris was gone, a breath on the wind that sighed behind the creature and reached into his expensive jacket for his heart. The thing burst in his hand, messier and more brutal with his bare fingers as he _pushed, _and the body toppled away from him over the railing, down the stone bank until the black waters of the river could draw it with silent fingers under its rain-whipped surface.

The woman in the grey silk skidded to a stop, her rope of a necklace swinging wildly with the motion as Fenris thudded hard into solidity again. That had taken more out of him than he'd thought – his back _burned _– but there was only one left, only one—

—who let out a piercing whistle into the swollen sky, and from the rooftops around him four more shadows detached and slipped to the street. Fenris took a step back, his vision blackening at the edges, and realized the knife had caught him after all; he pressed a hand to his side where it was bleeding, sliding his thumb to his belt where he kept his spare cartridges, but knew both efforts to be ultimately futile. His blood was seeping hot and fast and the creatures were closing in, smiling, laughing, some of them with gleaming blades and others with gleaming hands, and even if he did manage to reload the revolver he did not think he still had the strength or the finesse to finish them all.

"Come, little wolf," said one of them as Fenris backed away towards the river behind him, her voice as gentle as the rain that still pattered down around them. "Your master calls you home."

"Your men are dead," Fenris snarled as his hip pressed against the railing, raising the revolver to the level of his eyes. "Your trap has failed. I am not a slave, and I _will not yield._"

The woman shook her head, black eyes glinting in the shadows. She gestured and said, "Take him."

And before the last word finished the creature exploded into flame.

There was an instant's brief, startled silence; then she screamed as she burned and her friends screamed as well, staggering back from the sudden pyre as if they too might be immolated. Fenris's gaze jerked left, unsteady, disbelieving – but there was Hawke, blood still smeared across her nose, her soaked white shirt a transparent shroud under her vest as she lowered her smoldering hand. She stalked to meet him, stopped at his side, faced the things that ringed them with a glare meant to incinerate them by its strength alone.

"The only person taking him anywhere is me," she snapped, then added just as angrily to Fenris, "and I am going to _kill _you."

"We must survive first," Fenris told her, his heart pounding as if to beat the ache from his chest. Hawke lifted her chin, her eyes still dark with fury – but when he straightened she grinned at him, hot and hard, and they attacked.

The battle was four against two, but Hawke was fresh and Hawke had _come after him_, and Fenris fully intended to hear what she had to say – and to speak himself. Two of the remaining vampires went down in the first assault, shredded by Fenris's hand and Hawke's magic; then they split to cover the other two, and with the waning of his strength he found he could spend no more focus on his surroundings. The woman he faced was fast, her eyes bright, her hands quick – twice she dug her nails deep into his skin as she tried to circle his throat with her silver wire, but twice Fenris managed to elude her. She danced back; he followed; she struck and he blocked and turned and she was _gone_—

And agony exploded in his side. A cry of pain burst out of him and he faltered forward as the woman with the pale hair drew her hand from his ribs, out of the still-bleeding gash the knife had left. She smiled, leaning close as he swayed to face her, smirking as his hand twitched around his gun, as the muscles in his arms screamed at the effort he demanded—

When she fell, two neat bullet holes centered squarely over her heart, the only sound was the pearls from her broken necklace skittering off into the road. Fenris turned without another glance, barely managing to keep his grip on his revolver, counting the bodies, looking for Hawke—

The street pitched wildly sideways and he went to one knee, unbalanced, half-blind with rainwater and the red thudding in his side and the back of his head. He tried to push himself up again and his hand slipped on a rain-slick cobblestone; somehow the rest of him followed, the cool, dirty street rising to meet his cheek. Water slid over his nose and pooled in his half-open mouth – he struggled to open it wider, to draw in air that seemed suddenly far too thin and too cold.

He saw Hawke turn towards him, blood on her face and her eyes black as pitch. He blinked rain and the blackness blurred, grew larger, swallowing her face and darkening the world around her, breath by slow-drawn breath, until it spread across his vision like a silent, starless sky.


	6. Broken Things Are Mended

**AN: **I love Mass Effect. Shh.

* * *

**Chapter Six**

Broken Things Are Mended

-.-.-

They hail me as one living,  
But don't they know  
That I have died of late years,  
Untombed although?

[…]

And if when I died fully  
I cannot say,  
And changed into the corpse-thing  
I am to-day,

Yet is it that, though whiling  
The time somehow  
In walking, talking, smiling,  
I live not now.

—_The Dead Man Walking_, Thomas Hardy

-.-.-

"I hope you know you're behaving a perfect fool, Hawke."

"And you're clutching that grudge so tightly I'm surprised you haven't cracked a finger."

"Don't be flippant. He's a menace and you know it."

Hawke pinned the last of her hair on top of her head and turned to Anders. "You have him swimming in enough anodyne that he couldn't tell you his name right now, much less lift a finger against anyone here. If Fenris really wanted you dead – again – he could have ignored that raider with the throwing knives last week."

"You haven't seen the way he glares at me. Like I'm a schoolboy about to be taken to task for a messy copybook again."

"I have. It actually reminds me a great deal of the way you glare at him."

"You needn't sound so amused by it."

Hawke laughed, standing, and crossed to where Anders leaned against her untidy writing desk in the study. "Don't be angry. We live too long for grudges."

"I think most would say the opposite," Anders grumbled, but let the matter drop as he tweaked one of Hawke's hairpins back into place. "Did you get what you needed?"

_The blue lines of a vein bruising the skin, the low heady thump of a heart, the first heavy draw of that sacred, iron-touched blood sliding hot over her tongue—and Fenris's eyes burning her with shame. _"Yes," she said, sighing, and busied herself with the buttons of her green kid gloves. "Or something like it, anyway."

"Let me," Anders said, and when she presented her wrist he did up the buttons with brusque efficiency. "And I don't suppose you'll listen to me about tonight either," he added, though his voice was less bitter than rueful.

Hawke pursed her lips against her smile but permitted him to help her into her ankle-length coat, hiding all of her gold-and-green gown but the last inch or so above her slippers. "There wasn't time to search the area last night, not with Fenris wounded as badly as he was and your clinic so far. Those people were dressed in evening-wear, and the only place they could have come from without being ruined by the rain is that tuppence playhouse a street over. If there's a nest of slavers working right under my nose in this city, I intend to know about it."

"And that it was Fenris they were after has nothing to do with it."

"Keep your jibes to yourself, Anders," said Hawke, only half-laughing, "or I'll tell Isabela what happened to that bottled ship she was so proud of."

"You wouldn't."

"Oh, wouldn't I? It's amazing how careless one's elbows can become when one is preoccupied with fighting—what was it? A dragon? A _ghost _dragon."

"I was trying to get the cat out of the carpet-marsh," Anders grumbled, but a chagrined smile was creeping over his face.

Hawke was pleased to see it. It had been some time since she'd last seen Anders smile; it made him look younger, the lines and years of care smoothing away from his face as if a hand had reached up to brush them away. When he was like this Hawke could remember the smiling young man she'd met two lifetimes ago, across a sea and further, when she still kept her hours by the hot and heavy sun of Texas and her family had not yet begun to know death.

"Sister?"

The voice came from the door, and even as they turned Hawke saw the years re-etch themselves into the corners of his eyes, the deeper places around his mouth. Bethany stood in the doorway to the study in dark blue, her dress cut away from her shoulders and falling to the floor in a wash of fitted silk. Her black hair was braided behind her head, and a black cloak, trimmed in navy, was slung carelessly over her shoulders. "Are you ready to leave?"

"I am," said Hawke, and she did not miss the quick flick of her sister's eyes to Anders, as if in question – or in answer.

Anders let out a queer sigh that sounded almost resigned, and then he dipped his head in a half-bow in Bethany's direction. "You look lovely," he said, and at Hawke's indignant sniff added the same to her with a smile. "And so do you. And Merrill, wherever she is, I'm sure."

"She'll be along shortly," said Bethany, a look on her face that Hawke could not place. "She said she wanted to check on the patient before we left."

As if on cue, they heard a thump and a groan from upstairs as if someone had fallen; after a pause just long enough to be pointed light footsteps tumbled down the stairs under the streamwater whisper of fine satin. Merrill, somewhat breathless, appeared in a cascade of pink in the doorway beside Bethany. "Good heavens," she said, tucking one of her braids back behind her ears. "He's not a morning person at all, is he?"

"The sun went down an hour ago," Bethany pointed out at the same time Hawke asked, "He woke up?"

"Yes! Well, no. Not really. Just enough to say some very rude things and then fall off the bed."

"I'll take care of it," Anders said, shaking his head when Hawke's indecision showed. "If nothing else, he'll need another dose of laudanum."

Hawke nodded and squared her shoulders. "Then he's all yours. We'll be back by three." She crossed to Merrill and Bethany where they waited, following them into the hallway and the dimmer candlelight there; at the last moment she paused and turned back to Anders. "Thank you," she said, and meant it.

-.-.-

The playhouse was an old, pillared building on Tallis Street, and despite the uninspiring exterior the grand auditorium was nearly worthy of the title. It had once been called the Provocateur's Theatre, but after the close of a long-running play featuring a distinct style of footwear it had become known by its more informal name of The Blue Satin Shoes. Hawke had never been to the place herself – the theatre had a reputation of hosting generally odd, or eccentric, or flat-out _bad_ plays – but the current production advertised on the enormous street-side placards was an opera seria that looked almost entirely respectable. A few discreet questions at the ticket counter confirmed Fenris's hunters had been here the night before and every night for a week, in fact; a discreet tip and the box was theirs for the evening with no questions asked and no interruptions guaranteed.

"Goodness," said Merrill as they filed into the little balcony off the grand mezzanine, "this is so much _nicer _than I was expecting. Look, the seats even have cushions!"

And indeed they did, though the red velvet was faded and worn with years of use. The chairs themselves were set three before and five behind; Hawke followed Merrill and Bethany into the first row, peering with interest at the elbow-to-elbow crowd crammed into the cheaper seats below. The orchestra pit was crowded with silver and brass and the discordant twangs of tuning instruments; somewhere in a box across the way a woman was shouting after her young son to be seated and behave himself.

"That Connor sounds like a handful," Bethany murmured to Hawke, laughing, and brushed a bit of fluff from the knee of her blue gown.

Hawke nudged her with one gloved elbow. "Anders was right, you know," she told her, and pretended to miss the color rising high on her sister's cheek. "You do look beautiful tonight."

"You say that every time we go somewhere nice."

"Well, it's usually true," Hawke said with a smile, then clapped her gloved hands. "Excellent. Let's look for clues."

Merrill leant forward from Bethany's other side. "And what exactly are we looking for? I mean, vampires, I know, but other than that? And other than us?"

"Haven't the faintest idea," Hawke said frankly. "Anything that's out of the ordinary, I suppose."

Bethany shook her head, but obediently began searching the crevices of her cushions and the lining of the black walnut hardwood framing them. "Thank goodness Aveline is coming. I don't know if you'd make a very good gumshoe."

"As if she'd tolerate the competition. You know she can't stand that detective over on Baker Street, and Isabela never fails to badger her with his famous methods. The last time she asked what kind of pipe-ash was in the gutter I really thought Aveline might have Donnic arrest her."

"I remember that!" Merrill exclaimed, her head popping up from the second row of seats behind them. She dropped her voice into an astonishingly terrible British accent and growled, "Elementary, my dear slattern. Ask again and you'll discover it by the taste."

"And then they sniped at each other for an hour and it felt like four."

"And you weren't even the butt of the joke," Aveline said behind them. "Imagine how long it felt for _me._"

Hawke straightened, smiling, as Aveline made her way into the box. Her dress was a warm, muted orange with gold fringe at the neck and sleeves, and as Donnic followed her in and pulled the curtain closed Hawke saw he had matched her colors with a single marigold for his boutonnière. "You made it just in time," she told them, embracing Aveline and dropping a quick kiss on Donnic's cheek. "The crew is beginning to mutiny."

"You'll have to tell me what exactly we're doing here, first. I couldn't tell from your note whether or not this was police business."

Donnic glanced at his wife, then placed himself in the end chair of the back row, lifting his hands in surrender. "This investigation is entirely yours, my dear. I'm only here to watch an opera with my wife. That is, if you think I'll have her back by curtain."

Her whole face softening, the corners of Aveline's mouth turned up in a smile. "You will," she said gently, and when she turned back to Hawke her eyes were alight with eagerness. "Now, tell me what I'm looking for."

It took very little time to explain Fenris's attack and subsequent convalescence, and even less to outline the conclusions that had led Hawke here. Aveline listened intently, nodding at the salient points and asking what questions she needed, but by the time Hawke had finished she had begun to frown. "It's sound logic," she said at last, sighing, "but I doubt there'll be much to find here. This box is too small to conceal much, and if these people were as capable killers as you say, they probably won't have left much behind in the way of a trail."

"Fair enough," sighed Hawke.

Bethany ran her slippered toe along the join of the balustrade and the floor in front of her. "It's never as easy as it is in novels. No hidden levers to open secret doors, no maps stashed in a knot in the railing with an X marking the hideout."

"And there isn't anything back here either," Merrill offered, her voice muffled.

Hawke stood and circled behind the back row, sharing a moment of amused bewilderment with Donnic at how Merrill had managed to trap both hands in separate seats. The little balcony was indeed not meant for subterfuge; the walls were sturdy and not ornately carved, and old enough that no secrets could have been hidden behind them without marks left in the dust. There was an ancient spatter of blood in one corner – _that _she sensed with no difficulty – but the wood had soaked up whatever worth it still possessed years ago, and she was forced to settle for staring forlornly at the place where it had fallen.

Jethann had been kind, she thought, kinder than usual to allow her to return so much later in the evening to finish with him. Once she'd half-carried, half-dragged Fenris to safety and sent Bodahn for Anders she'd been exhausted and trembling, overwhelmed as much by the rush of battle as by Fenris's open wounds, by his fresh, heart-hot blood sliding over her skin and seeping into her shirt. She was not so altruistic as Anders and not so controlled as Bethany; though she would not drink from the places he bled without his approval – and _that_, she knew, was so far beyond impossibility as to be ludicrous – she could not stop herself from licking her own skin where his blood smeared her arms, her wrists, her fingers, from crushing the darkened, wet folds of her shirt against her lips like a dying woman in a desert desperate for one last swallow of relief.

It had not been the taste of the stuff itself – blood was blood, unless the person was ill; she'd learned _that_ long ago – but somewhere one of the veins of lyrium that curled over his skin must have been split, and one swallow had given Hawke the barest lightning-glimpse of the power that seethed so silently with each pulsing beat of his heart. It had tasted like cold fire on her tongue, a flash and then gone, as startling and as profound as the first time she'd woken in a foundry's pit deep under the earth with her heart silent and dead inside her chest, her mother's still body beside her on one side and Bethany kneeling on her other, weeping, her hands over her face and her chin dark with Hawke's blood. There had been no word, no chord of music; there had only been the knowledge that what had been was gone, and the bitter realization that she now matched her sister in every way, and the taste of death in her mouth.

"Sister," said Bethany, and Hawke started, the pieces of the rust-ridden foundry falling away like scales to leave the dusty auditorium in its place. Merrill had freed herself from the chairs and was peering over Bethany's shoulder so that the rose-colored ribbons in her hair trailed over both their necks, and Aveline seated herself beside her husband as Bethany looked back between them. "Did you know that the soprano is the Nightingale?"

"What?" said Hawke even as Merrill let out a cry of delight. "Is she really? Tonight?"

"Every night for the last two weeks, it appears. Look, here she is, playing the shepherdess."

"I had no idea," Hawke said as she came around the rows for a better view of the stiff white programme in Bethany's hands. "The last I'd heard she was in Venice, being hailed as the next Adelina Patti and never leaving a theatre without half-a-dozen curtain calls. Whatever could she be doing in a place like this?"

"Well, we've paid for the seats already – shall we find out?"

"For the price we got for them, I think it would be practically a sin _not _to."

Even as Hawke spoke, the gaslights dimmed on the walls and the crowd below began to fall silent. Merrill hurried to her own seat on Bethany's other side, her face alight with expectation and her green eyes nearly glowing; Bethany had already pulled her little golden opera glasses from her purse and was staring intently at the stage. Hawke glanced back to see Aveline smiling as Donnic laced their fingers together at her knee; she smiled herself to see it, biting back a laugh as Aveline reached up with her other hand to straighten the marigold in his buttonhole, and turned away to give them their privacy.

Fenris would never wear a marigold.

The thought came from nowhere and Hawke's smile slipped at its sudden ache—but the last of the lights flicked into darkness and the hall fell silent, and she was forced to put it from her mind for another time. The conductor's baton tapped twice on his stand, a sharp beat of breathless anticipation, and as the first violin began to sing a high, sweet note the lush velvet curtains split open.

And in the center of the stage, lit by a single white light, stood Leliana.

She looked much as Hawke remembered from Chateau Haine, tall and willowy and lovely, though her red hair had been cropped to just below her jawline and her dress looked like something closer to armor than a gown. She lifted her chin as the overture drew to a close, opened her mouth – and Hawke glanced down at her own programme with sudden, dawning dismay.

"Bethany!" she hissed, the title _Hirte der Sterne _staring up at her in bold-faced innocence. "I don't speak German!"

Her sister made an impatient gesture, not bothering to pull her opera glasses away from her face, and Hawke was forced to resign herself to three acts of half-caught words and muddled comprehension. The first aria did not last long, Leliana's clear voice winging into the rafters like a swift bird before falling again, and when she stepped back and spread her arm the stage behind her lit to life. The crowd gasped; the stage had been transformed into a sea of stars, fantastically colored planets spread among the vast blackness like stones dropped one by one into a still pond.

Leliana's costume did not look nearly so unusual amid that grandeur; indeed, as the other principles began to make their way onto the stage it swiftly became the simplest of the production. Women in intricate blue-feathered headdresses bowed and waved and sang of their homes among the stars; men in sequined waistcoats curved their necks and sang of war.

Despite the German, Hawke found she had little trouble following the story. Leliana was a woman of poverty, raised through happenstance to a position of power and respect; then, when a spectre of ancient evil rose amid the stars to threaten her life and the lives of all those she held dear she found herself standing nearly alone against them. The first act ended with a triumphant battle against the first vanguard of the enemy, Leliana rising bloody but unbeaten from the wreckage of a chimerical lustrous ship suspended from the stars with silver wire. The crowd burst into applause as she sang of triumph, cries of _brava! brava! _outreaching even the brass-voiced trumpets from the orchestra. The curtain came down, the lights came up – and the first act was over.

"Good heavens," said Hawke, fanning herself with her programme. "I can see why she took this role despite the venue."

"And despite the costumes. I've never seen so much tinsel in one place without a Christmas tree. Did you see the man with the great red camel's hump on his back?"

"The basso profundo? Every time he sang I thought the walls were going to tremble down around us." Merrill leaned forward. "You know, I think the Nightingale's looking at us, Hawke."

Hawke stole Bethany's opera glasses and followed her gaze down to the far left of the stage. There was little more than a ripple of movement in the heavy folds of the curtain, but Hawke caught a glimpse of red hair and a delicate face turned up towards them – and green eyes widening as if in surprise – or alarm. "I think that counts as a clue," she murmured, and settled back into her chair as the lights began to dim for the second act.

The second act, as it turned out, was no less impressive than the first. Some of the context Hawke found herself missing completely – one scene with Leliana's apparent death and resurrection in particular seemed vaguely blasphemous – and a reunion with one of her companions from the first act ended in an argument so violent and rapid that Hawke could not catch a word of the duet. It was, however, beautifully sung and utterly heartrending_,_ and by the time Leliana and her companion parted from each other with sorrow in their eyes the rows below them were thick with stifled sobs.

"He thinks she betrayed him," Bethany said sotto voce in Hawke's ear, and Hawke could hear the edge of tears in her sister's voice. "Oh, dear. I thought they liked each other."

"Perhaps they still will," Hawke whispered back, though her own eyes were fixed on the tall, narrow-waisted man in the blue coat that stood at Leliana's shoulder.

The threat to the worlds grew, but Leliana's friends grew as well, and by the time they emerged from the firecracker explosion of the enemy's stronghold at the end of the second act Hawke was nearly breathless enough not to laugh when the tenor in the blue coat caught Leliana in his arms and kissed her.

"Damn," said Bethany, and when her sister elbowed her she added with a pout, "and keep your _schadenfreude _to yourself."

"There's still time," Hawke conceded, grinning, and bit her lip when Aveline shushed them both.

But her smile did not last long. The third act was more somber than the first two, darker and grim with war, the twinkling candles of stars extinguished one by one in the black sea as the evil adversaries encroached upon Leliana and her friends. The death toll rose, too – it reminded Hawke of certain Shakespearean plays for how quickly good people fell – and when betrayal cost the life of the dearest of them, a quick-singing doctor with a lively face and good humour in his voice, Hawke could not stop her tears.

And then Leliana sang his lament, quietly and with no accompaniment, and Hawke _wept._

Merrill had sung this song for her, once, on an anniversary that had been potent with mourning. It was an old Welsh folk-tune called _Uthenera_, a melody of rest and of long-sought sleep, of sorrow and hope and the ending of grief, and to hear it again so unexpectedly in this place, bared and naked with anguish, struck Hawke to the deep places of her heart. Leliana's figure blurred and shivered with tears but Hawke could not look away; she fixed her eyes on her face and her heart to her voice until the last low notes shuddered into silence, and when Bethany's hand gripped hers hard in the roar of applause that followed, Hawke returned the grasp just as tightly. Her sister's face was white but dry, her eyes dark with memories; on her other side Merrill had both hands over her mouth, her eyes clenched tight, tears rolling down her cheeks in steady streams.

"Hopeless," Hawke said, a laugh forcing its way through the choked lump in her throat, and Bethany managed a smile in answer. Only Merrill had a handkerchief between the three of them; they made do as best they could as the applause died away, giggling at the mess they'd made of themselves in the worn balcony box of a dusty opera house, and below them on the stage Leliana lifted her voice and sang a new song of peace.

The opera hurried towards its climax, then, Leliana brokering armistices and uniting worlds against their common enemy, and when the stage filled end-to-end with a hundred voices all raised in an open-throated battle-song, the surety of their victory wrapped around Hawke's chest like twine – and when the battle was over, and the crowds parted to reveal Leliana's dying figure fallen among the rubble of the silver ship, the twine turned into an iron band that squeezed_._

"She's saying the peace they've earned was never meant for her," Bethany whispered under Leliana's final, rippling aria. For a woman dying her voice was strong and proud; the orchestra's chords curled under her voice and pushed it higher, soaring again and again until the choir around her caught up the thread, joining with her in the harmony until her song was theirs. Leliana smiled, brilliantly, her red hair catching in the candlelight; then the orchestra cut away all at once save a lone silver trumpet, and as Leliana died the tenor in the blue coat knelt beside her and sang a reprise of her lament.

The choir picked up this melody too, twining it with the song of hope and freedom Leliana had left them with, and by the time the man in the blue coat rose with Leliana's body in his arms, the orchestra swelling with glad and golden-voiced victory through the grief, the entire audience was on its feet. Triumph gloried with the strings, borne aloft by the brass and the woodwinds as the conductor flung his arm into the air—

And it was over.

The applause was deafening in the hall, the acoustics of the ceilings throwing the sound back against the walls to double and then triple it. The curtains closed and opened again, Leliana on her feet again and bowing; four times the audience called her back, and four times she bent gracefully under their adoration. White roses fluttered onto the stage around her, men and women alike cheering wildly, and when at last the curtain fell for the final time across that otherworldly sky and the gaslights flared to full strength to guide the departing feet, Hawke permitted herself to sink back into her chair with a sigh, wishing she'd thought to bring a rose of her own.

She stared a moment at the embroidered velvet curtain where it hid the stars, then turned to an equally stunned Bethany and Merrill. In the row behind them Aveline had clenched her husband's hand so tightly she was having trouble loosening it again, and Hawke saw the telltale redness in her nose that marked her own tears.

"_Well_," Hawke said at last, "shall we see if the Nightingale takes visitors?"

-.-.-

She did, in fact, take visitors, and when the door opened Hawke did not miss the sheer delight that suffused her friend's face. "Hawke!" Leliana cried, swooping towards her in a cloud of golden kimono until she could kiss Hawke on both cheeks. "And Miss Bethany, too," she added to Bethany with the same affection. "I'm so delighted to see you again – I had no idea the two of you had planned to come see me tonight! You should have warned me. Didn't I see Mrs. Hendyr with you in the box?"

"Oh yes," Hawke said as they entered, following Bethany and Merrill to the delicate, white-upholstered chaises dotting the respectable dressing room. Bouquets of every color and size filled each surface; more, wrapped in tissue-thin white paper, littered the floor beside the dressing table. An old margarine label had been pasted onto one corner of the mirror for some inexplicable reason, and to the smirking Frenchwoman decorating it Leliana had added a black ink mustache and devil horns. "But she's here in a – professional capacity as well, and she wanted to ask the staff a few questions before everyone scattered to the winds."

"I see," murmured Leliana, but her thoughtful look faded away in a moment as she turned to Merrill, smiling. "And – I'm so sorry, I didn't catch your name, Miss—"

"Merrill," said she, and took Leliana's proffered hand in both of hers. "I'm so pleased to meet you. You were really quite marvelous tonight – however did you think to include Uthenera in your opera? The language doesn't match at all and yet it fit so beautifully I couldn't help crying."

"You know the song?" Leliana asked, momentarily startled away from Hawke's laughing introduction, and then her gaze cleared. "Of course – I can hear it in your accent. How foolish of me! I travelled through Wales with a few dear friends several years ago, and one night we heard one of the clans singing it over the moors. It was – lovely, and haunting, and I refused to leave until I'd learnt the words."

"The clan…it wasn't headed by a woman named Marethari, was it?" Merrill asked, her voice catching with sudden hope.

But Leliana was already shaking her head, and a bit of red hair slipped out of the silver pins to fall loose around her face. "I'm afraid not. The elder who taught me was named Chandar."

"Oh – well. I see. Thank you all the same. And your opera really _was _quite lovely."

Merrill joined Hawke on her chaise-lounge, the moment of sadness flitting away under her natural cheer, and Leliana reseated herself at the little stool before her mirror. "Thank you – but you keep referring to it as my opera. I wonder why?"

Merrill cocked her head, birdlike. "Well, you wrote it, didn't you?"

Leliana's eyebrows lifted as Hawke's gaze flew to her programme – but under _composer _was a Spanish name she did not know, a man's name: _Zevran Arainai._ "A pen name?" asked Hawke, uncertain.

"A good friend," Leliana answered, and laughed. "You always did have the most interesting companions, my dear Hawke. Yes," she added to Merrill, "I helped write it. Zevran and I have a long-standing and mutually-beneficial partnership: he helps me compose my operas, and I introduce him to the fascinating men and women who help bring them to life. He is a man very fond of artistry."

Bethany coughed as Hawke tried to suppress a smile. "Goodness, I've missed you, Leliana."

"And I you. However did you find me here?"

"Sheer happenstance. We were following the trail of – a mutual enemy, and found ourselves here tonight."

"Ah, I see. The previous occupants of Box C."

"You saw them?"

Leliana began pulling the pins from her hair, fluffing the loosened curls around her cheeks. "They were there for the last five shows, since Saturday night. I remember because that was the only night they really _watched_ – every time since, they were whispering among themselves as if the playhouse were a common barroom." She sniffed and began to draw a dampened cloth under her eyes to remove the heaviest makeup. "It was terribly rude to the other paying customers, I thought, but they'd reserved the box for two weeks, which was why I was so surprised to see you there tonight instead." She paused. "Then again, I _have_ learned some rather interesting things in the back of a theatre before."

"Anything about these people in particular?"

"Nothing useful to you, I'm sorry to say. All I can tell you is that there were never more than eight of them, and the tall one with black hair kept shorting Sketch on the admission prices. Can you not ask them yourself?"

"Those acquaintances are beyond questioning now," Hawke said lightly, and ignored the sudden flashing memory of Fenris, soaked to the bone, one hip pressed against a low stone wall with his enemies closing in and a river at his back, his pistol in one hand and his eyes as wild and desperate as she'd ever seen them. "So we find ourselves at something of a dead end."

Leliana pursed her lips, her brow furrowing as she thought. At last, and with real regret, she said, "I truly cannot think of anything. I am sorry."

"You needn't worry; the crisis is past for the moment as it is. Will you keep an ear out all the same? They might mention someone named Fenris."

A glint sparked in Leliana's eye. "A lover?"

"A friend," Hawke said as Merrill giggled and Bethany laughed outright. But that was not quite true either; she winced and amended, "An acquaintance?"

"Not one so removed from questioning as your others, I hope."

"Not unless Anders has murdered him," Hawke grumbled, then started. "God, the time. We have other errands to run, Leliana, so we must go, but how long will you be in town? Please come have dinner with us one evening; Aveline will be sorry to miss you and I'm _sure_ Isabela would love to say hello again. So to speak."

Leliana grinned as she reached behind her into the second drawer of the dressing table, pulling free a heavy white envelope. "As much as I would enjoy seeing our dear Isabela again, I believe I have something more interesting for you and Anders. You do remember Alistair, don't you?"

-.-.-

Hawke had promised three, but it was nearly five o'clock in the morning by the time she, Merrill, and Bethany made their exhausted way back to the manor in Belgrave Square. The bodies of the dead vampires had been more difficult to destroy than she'd expected. The weather had been poor enough that she had not felt easy leaving them in the street for the uncertain sun, and despite their nature Hawke hadn't felt right shoving all six of them into the Thames for some unlucky policeman to discover floating downriver. Worse, the little abandoned shed she'd stuffed them into had collapsed into rot under the last night's rain, and even with Merrill and Bethany to help, burning six soaked bodies was no easy feat either, and in the end they'd had to set the whole of the shed on fire and beg Donnic's – and Aveline's – pardons for the smell. They'd also stopped by the cordoned docks to satisfy Hawke's curiosity – but even there the windows were dark and the streets quiet, the Russians – revolutionaries or otherwise – appearing for all intents and purposes asleep.

Still, the sun was well away from rising as they stumbled at last into Hawke's silent oak-wood foyer, though she could feel the promise of both heat and withering light in the bared places of her skin. The sky was just beginning to pale from black to grey; above her head she could hear Orana humming as she began her morning routine of closing curtains and fastening windowsills and drawing shut the doors against that devastating light. Hawke's back ached and her green-and-gold dress was stained with sweat; Merrill and Bethany were little better, both of them peeling away with little fanfare to their own rooms and the heated baths that awaited them.

Hawke waited a little longer, undoing the buttons of her long tan coat with slow fingers, standing alone in the foyer as she listened to the heartbeat of her family, to the distant sounds of a city waking to its sun. So many years and still she found herself – _wanting_ – but before the thought could root too strongly in her heart she shook her head and shook her coat briskly from her shoulders, draping it over the banister as she strode up the stairs. No time to waste on hopeless dreams – no hope to waste on impossibilities. She was what she was, and she would not pine for something she could not touch.

Anders's door stood open at the top of the stairs, his room empty and dark as it had been so frequently of late, and Hawke supposed he must have returned to his clinic once Fenris had been put to sleep again. The time was too near dawn; he would not return again until night, if he returned at all, and Hawke shook her head. "Fanatic," she murmured without heat; that was an old, old argument, and one no longer worth the waging. She had her causes and Anders had his – there was little to be gained by their rehashing, and as she'd told him only the evening before, they lived too long for grudges.

The room beside it, with its door cracked open and the sound of cheerful Italian trickling out, was rather more welcoming, and Hawke knocked gently and eased in. Fenris was still asleep in the middle of the wide white-quilted bed set under the room's tall window, his skin a dark shock of color against the bedclothes and the paleness of his hair, but Orana seemed to pay his silence little mind as she bustled about the room to the sound of her own chatter. She had not yet drawn the curtains; a wide strip of young morning sunlight spilt over Fenris's unmoving face, draping itself over his pillow and the edge of the bed and the wooden floor, a stark and solid rampart before her that stretched from wall to wall.

Orana nodded as Hawke entered, gathering in her arms the unused bandages Anders had left behind on a little table under the window, and gestured at the silent figure on the bed. "He is still asleep."

"So I see. Did he give you or Anders any trouble?"

"Oh, no. The doctor gave him a little shot in his arm –" she made a _pft_ noise and one hand moved under the fall of bandages as if to demonstrate, "—and he was out again. He only…" and here she hesitated, her smile falling away as she glanced at Fenris. "He said a few words I could hear. Italiano. Hurting. _Please_," she said, her eyes half-closing. "_Master_, and _no more, I beg_—"

"All right," Hawke said quietly, and Orana fell silent. That was enough – that was too much, too soon, too deep into Fenris's heart for her to step so easily without his permission. Orana met her gaze levelly, her eyes old and weary in her young face, and nodded.

Then, carefully, she reached up to the still-open curtains behind her, and the room exploded in white.

Hawke did not even realize it had been _Fenris_ who had moved until the cloud of unused bandages began to settle on the bed, until she could see Fenris's bare arms wrapped around Orana from behind as he backed against the glass window between the billowing brocade curtains. One fist held both Orana's wrists at her own throat, the other gripping her waist; his face was dimmed with shadow, made darker by the lines of sunlight edging the sharp contours of his skin, though Hawke could see one wild and rolling eye flash green as he searched the room in open dread.

"Fenris," she said sharply, stepping forward – and he _flinched,_ tightening his grip on Orana before letting loose a torrent of caustic Italian Hawke had no hope of translating. Orana knew it, and responded just as quickly in a sob-choked voice that had Hawke darting forward again – sunlight or no, she would _not_ let Orana be harmed – but before she could reach either of them something Orana said seemed to pierce through Fenris's fear, and he jerked her wrists away from her chest to stare at the bared skin there.

To stare at the _scars _there.

Hawke knew what they looked like, knew more clearly what they meant, the two pinprick places on the inside of each wrist where the cuff of Orana's sleeve slid high, where teeth had once bitten and blood had once been drawn, and often. Fenris stared at them, breathing something Hawke could not hear, and then like a wolf who had caught a scent his head swung up, blank with fury and fear, and his green eyes fixed on hers in the way an arrow nocked after prey.

"_You_," he said, and he was on her.

"No!" cried Orana, but the word meant nothing in the mindless crush of fists and flesh. Fenris caught Hawke once on the shoulder with a closed hand; she swiveled and he followed and when she ducked under the next blow she drove her elbow into the bandaged place on his ribs. He staggered and groaned and Hawke gulped a breath – but before she could follow through he was moving again, _gone_, fast as light and faster as one hand drove her by her throat against the wall and the other, lit blue-white from finger to elbow, plunged wrist-deep into her chest.

It _hurt_.

Somehow Hawke had not thought it would hurt; somehow she found the mind even now to curse herself for her idiocy. His fingers tightened around her heart and she gasped, throwing her head back against the wall, away from his hot-pulsing palm at her throat and the bright swathe of sunlight that fell terrifyingly close alongside them. "Fenris," she choked, and even as the word left her lips a quiet thought hissed forward from the hidden places of her mind: _let him, let him take it, the thing is dead already and you are dead already—_

"_Vi prego_," said Orana from the other side of the bed, white-faced and trembling, her scarred hands at her mouth. "_Vi prego_, no."

Fenris's glare slid sideways and a faint crease appeared between the hard black slashes of his eyebrows; recognition, or a breath of it, flickered across his eyes like candleflame in a wind. "Fenris," Hawke said again, and his thumb slid higher up her throat until he forced her chin upward. He held her heart in his hand and she waited for it to skip forward, to drum out an unsteady beat – but all she felt was a deep, broken ache and the old bite of both hatred and terror. "Fenris," she gasped, her voice stretched thin and tight, "stop. Please_—_it's me—Fenris, _don't—_"

His hand tightened again and she choked – her chest was on _fire _ – and then all at once his face cleared like the morning after a storm, washing into plain surprise – and then shock – and then _horror_ as he saw her at last, as he tore his fingers away from his tight-fisted hold. Stripped of his support, she sagged against the wall until her open palm struck a cluttered table at her hip; her fingers clenched around its walnut surface like the only solid thing in the room, and watching Orana's grey-faced fear bleed into Fenris's sudden understanding, she thought that might be actually near the truth.

"Hawke," he breathed, holding his own wrist against his chest as if to keep it steady; he swayed backwards into the middle of the room, faltering, and then went hard to one knee. "Hawke, what—"

"Just the second time in two days you've wounded me to the heart," she gasped, wavering a bit herself, knowing the words sharper than she meant them even as she spoke. "This time you just did it with your hand."

"Hawke, I – forgive me, I thought – I heard—"

"One can surmise," she said curtly, and staggering sideways to avoid both the sunlight and his bent figure, crossed to where Orana still trembled at the foot of the bed like a leaf caught in a gale. "Are you all right? Orana. Look at me."

"Yes, yes," she said, passing her fingers over her mouth; Hawke leant closer, worried, but the tears were already drying on Orana's face, the color washing back into her cheeks with relief and release of tension. "Yes. I am all right."

"Good. Go down and have a cup of tea with Sandal. I'll take care of this, all right? Tell Bethany not to worry. We're all fine here." Orana did not seem to believe it; Hawke offered her a warmer smile, and at last, reassured if not convinced, she was shortly out into the hall. It was not until the door had closed quietly behind her that Hawke realized that the curtains were still wide open, that sunlight still ran implacably along the bed's rumpled pillow and the brass fittings of the headboard.

Hawke drew in a breath, then two, and turned. Fenris still knelt on the floor, one hand pressed hard against his bandaged side where she had struck him, his eyes pinched shut against the light and the truth that came with it. "Well," she said eventually, when he seemed inclined to do little more than wait for her judgment, "are you going to say anything?"

"Are you – hurt?"

"I'll live."

The muscles of his back corded as he bent his head; he did not look at her. Lyrium spilled down either side of his spine like unfurling vines. "Hawke. I am – I am _sorry._"

Hawke bit back her sharp retort, swallowed too the frustrated sigh that followed. She wanted to be furious with him –_ was _furious with him, even now, both for following her to feed and for frightening Orana – but she had little defense against the raw regret in his voice and none at all against the sight of his suffering, and when he hunched further into himself at her long silence she blew out an exasperated breath.

"_Damn_ you," she told him even as she bent to sling one of his arms over her shoulder, ignoring his bewilderment, ignoring the bone-deep ache his hand had left in her chest. "Next time I'm just leaving you in the rain."

He said nothing and his eyes slid from hers; when they reached the bed he sank into the disheveled covers with a breath too sharp to be without pain. One hand clenched hard on his knee, the lyrium over his knuckles flickering with the pressure, and Hawke winced, realizing abruptly that she had led him a step or two farther than was prudent. The window was too close to them both; as it was a heavy strip of sunlight fell over Fenris's far shoulder, closing its grip around him as if it meant to drag him back into the morning, to tear him away from the bitter darkness and the things like her that kept it.

Hawke eased back, wary of both his silence and his hurt, but had moved no further than the foot of the bed when he lifted his head and looked at her.

"Why?" he asked, and his voice was hoarse with something she could not name.

She snorted. "Because you were being an _ass_, Fenris."

"No," he said, frustrated, and made a gesture in the air between them. "I know. I meant…_why_ – how can you—"

Nothing else emerged as he groped for words; Hawke could not tell if he did not know what he meant to ask or if the words were even there at all, but somehow she knew what he wanted all the same. She stepped closer, hesitating, and then put one hand lightly on his nearer shoulder, the one still dimmed, still safe. "Sometimes," she said, hardly knowing what she meant, "friends forgive each other their mistakes. Because sometimes you have to rise above what you are."

Fenris stilled, blinked once. Then he said, just as quietly, "I have been no friend to you."

"Sure you have. We've killed things together, shouted at each other, and still gone out for drinks afterward; _and_ you haven't beaten Anders about the head even once, which is a better record than mine, I assure you."

"Hawke. I am sorry."

"I know, Fenris."

He shook his head and looked up at her, and as he did Hawke realized that her hand still rested on his shoulder, that the sunlight tumbling over the white bedspread and the white-knuckled fist at his knee had slid closer to her without her realizing, close enough to lick at the edges of her skirts and almost touch the curve of her cheek with something like warmth. She wanted – oh, she _wanted –_

"Will you burn?" Fenris asked her then, his voice so low it might have been thunder but for the blue-gold sky behind him.

"No," Hawke breathed, "not at once. Only a moment—"

Fenris took her wrist in his hand and pulled her into the light.

It was warm. She could feel her skin flushing, could see from the corner of her eye the brilliant blinding glow of dawn-light on her hair, her cheek, could almost pretend to the life and love and heartbeat she'd once guarded so carefully against pain. Fenris's eyes widened, then narrowed – he reached up a hand in amazement, as if he did not know he had moved, his fingers outstretched to her throat – but in the breath before he touched her she felt the warmth on her cheek turn hot, and then like fire, and when that fire began to burn she threw herself back with a gasp into safety, into shadow.

Fenris's hand dropped between them, and his fingers closed around nothing.

Hawke clenched her eyes shut with the short hissing gasps of a woman who had stepped too close to a cliff's edge, knowing herself a fool, wishing otherwise, wishing that _want _meant anything in a world so sharply split between light and darkness. For a moment she thought she felt fingertips on her wrist – and then they were gone, and Hawke backed away before she could be burned again.

"You should sleep," she said, and turned her head. "Bethany will have my hide if I keep a patient from his rest."

"Hawke—"

"And try to keep your lyrium to yourself this time," she added, forcing a smile that felt as brittle as glass. "I'm sure a strain like that can't be good for your heart either."

He said nothing, only looked at her; and then at last he nodded, his mouth thin, a muscle in his throat jumping as he swallowed. "I will."

"Good night, Fenris," Hawke said, turning away, and as the door closed behind her she thought she heard him murmur, one last time,_ I am sorry._


	7. A History Is Told

**Chapter Seven**

A History Is Told

-.-.-

Thank Heaven! the crisis,  
The danger, is past,  
And the lingering illness  
Is over at last—  
And the fever called "Living"  
Is conquered at last.

—_For Annie, _Edgar Allan Poe

.

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

—Ecclesiastes 9:5

-.-.-

"Watch your left hand."

"Watch it yourself, you great doorstop. You're dropping your point like a green recruit."

"If you will not fight with full strength, neither will I."

"You're still injured. Careful of the chair!"

"Not – _ugh _– not enough to matter."

"Of course it is, when you forget the first rule of street-fighting in London: there's _always _a second wave."

"Perhaps in your streets. In Rome they had the civility to all attack at once."

"There's no reason you shouldn't ease back into training, is all I meant. I don't mind helping, but—"

"Watch your left – your _other _left—"

Aveline's sword dropped to the rug with a dull thump, the blunted edge gleaming in the morning sunlight as she pressed her fingers to her mouth. Fenris winced, breathing heavily, and lowered his own practice sword. "Are you injured?" he asked, guilt swelling in his gut.

"Stings," she said around her glove, waving Donnic back into his chair with her other hand. "No harm done."

"Perhaps we should finish for the morning."

"If you're tired, we needn't push any harder today."

Fenris lifted an eyebrow and glanced to Donnic by the empty fireplace. Aveline's husband was grinning, as aware of his wife's fatigue as Fenris was, and Fenris thought it was a mark of both his affection and his wisdom that he said nothing in answer. Eventually, though, Fenris dropped the point of his sword to the rug and leaned on it, allowing his overtaxed muscles to ease out of their strain. "Tomorrow, then?"

"We'll be here at the same time."

"I will look forward to it," he said, and began wiping the sweat from his face with a cloth. Donnic tossed a similar one to Aveline, who did the same once she'd replaced her practice sword in its leather sheath.

A sudden yawn drew their attention to the door, all three of their heads turning alike to see Hawke standing in the hallway beyond it in a red Chinese dressing gown, careful to keep well back in the shadows and away from the morning light. "Making plans without me? I'm hurt."

"I'm sorry," Aveline said, stepping quickly to the tall windows and pulling the thick drapes across them. The room dimmed sharply and Hawke moved a few steps closer, close enough that Fenris could see the toes of her slippers under her hem, the lines of exhaustion at the corners of her eyes. "Did we wake you?"

"No, I'm afraid I'm still up. Not for much longer – I heard your voices in my library and thought I'd come say hello. I didn't know it'd become a battleground."

Her smile slid through the shade as easily as a gold chain fell through spread fingers, and Fenris became abruptly aware of the furniture shoved haphazardly against the tall bookcases lining the room, of the smell of sweat and leather oils overpowering the old must of paper. "Aveline has been assisting me for several days," he said both in explanation and apology, and Hawke lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

"If Bethany's all right with it, I don't mind in the slightest. Someone might as well get use out of the library during the day."

"You look tired," Aveline said, real concern threading her voice. "Have you eaten lately?"

"Dagna will be along shortly, as a matter of fact. A sensible girl," Hawke explained for Fenris's benefit – and at his frown, "who hasn't the slightest desire to become one of us but _does _want to become a scientist, and who trades me her blood every once in a while in exchange for an hour of candid questioning on its properties."

"An unusual subject for study."

"Only for some. Oh," she added as if struck, "now I remember what I came here for. Fenris, a friend of mine gave me this. I wondered if you'd be interested."

She crossed to him, one hand reaching into the pocket of her dressing gown, and when she gave into his fingers a thick white envelope of heavy, unmarked paper, it was the closest she had come to touching him in the ten days since he had first been injured. It was foolishness that he noted it at all, lunacy to _care_ – and yet, as she glanced up with that smile tugging still at her lips Fenris felt the same accursed _want _that had blasted through him that morning in her house, when he'd first awoken, crazed with fear, and tried to strike her; and when she'd let him take her hand, when she'd stood before him in a shivered fall of cool dawn-light and he had realized she was beautiful.

Now, after living with her and her sister and her friends for ten days, the _want _was becoming _need._

Hawke raised an eyebrow at his silence, and Fenris belatedly opened the envelope. Three pages slid free, all of them covered in close black writing; Fenris glanced at the first one and frowned. "What is – Gaxkang? I cannot read this."

"What? Oh! I'm so sorry. I forgot about the cipher. Here, just a moment." She took the envelope from him and dug a smaller, folded sheet from its depths; this she unfolded and smoothed and handed to him to place over the sheet he held in his hands, and Fenris found himself staring at a terse but perfectly intelligible message hidden in the original letter. "Alistair and his wife are friends of mine," she explained as he skimmed. "The place he mentions is a lovely little winter home of theirs on the French border – we wouldn't be able to stay for very long, but I thought you might like to get out of the city for a while. I know Bodahn's been anxious to have a look at the pipes of this place – they rattle something awful in winter."

Aveline leaned on her husband's chair, mock pique arching her brows. "I notice you haven't asked _me_, Hawke. No thought that we might like to get away from this City of Drains as well?"

"It's the week of that inquest. You told me not to make you any plans on pain of death by bludgeoning."

Aveline's face darkened for a moment as she glanced to Donnic. "Yes. The magistrate's son and the caves. All right, go without me. But say hello to the Theirins for us."

"Theirin?" said Fenris, his head coming up sharply. "_That _Theirin?"

"Well, yes," Hawke said, though she had the grace to look uncomfortable. "Hence the winter home on the French border. And the cipher. And the clandestine note-passing."

Fenris frowned and shook his head, but he could not deny that the name had touched his interest. The Theirins had risen abruptly to power in a small principality that lay tucked between France and Belgium, half-hidden by hills but lush in farmland and sweet rivers, peopled by strong, hard-working farmers known as much for their compassion as their stubbornness. Ten years ago a plague had swept the country, devastating towns and villages on the southern border, but Alistair Theirin and his wife had become something of national heroes after spearheading relief efforts in both their lands and beyond. Now the country was well into recovery – and now, if this letter was to be believed, Alistair had a wish to meet with both Hawke and another old acquaintance of his –

"Anders goes as well?"

Fenris did not know what expression was on his face, but it was enough to make Hawke laugh. "Yes, signore, Anders goes. And Isabela, too. One of Alistair's advisors has the most impressive collection of maps this side of the Pacific."

"I am…not sure." Not sure if he wished more to go or to stay, not sure he was far enough from flight to keep from running if given the chance. He had given her his word – but long history had proven that his word meant little when he let another rule him, and Fenris had little desire to test the strength of the chains he forged link by link each day he remained in Hawke's house.

"There's no need to decide now. We won't leave for another two weeks. If you'd like to come, you're welcome – that's all."

He nodded and returned her letter, hesitating before adding with dry humor, "And the sword welcome with me, I suppose."

"You never know. We might get through a full four days without having to kill anyone."

"Denial does you no credit," he said; then, brazenly, he added, "I enjoy following you, regardless."

Hawke stared, astonished, and Fenris's heart sank – and then she threw back her head and _laughed_, clear and bright, and Aveline chuckled, and for one moment in that room in Hawke's house there was nothing at all of shadow.

-.-.-

It took him longer than he would have wished to heal, though Hawke took him along as often as he demanded to go without coddling him for his wounds. Still, he did not hide his relief on the evenings that did not hold combat, though on one memorable occasion they had come close enough to it to have raised his hackles in defense. They had been near the docks with Anders and Bethany, investigating a rumor of a lyrium smuggler who was selling corrupted product, when Fenris turned a sharp corner to find himself face to face with a giant.

He startled back, one hand going automatically to the Remington at his waist as Hawke and the others came up behind him; then he realized that the man was – only a man, though broad-shouldered and _tall_, made taller by his crisp military bearing and the heavy winter coat he wore over an unidentifiable uniform.

"Go back," he said in a heavy Russian accent. "_Doroga zakryta_. The way is closed."

"We're looking for a smuggler," said Hawke as she came up behind him. "Brown hair, about this tall – last seen in this area Tuesday night. Have you noticed anything?"

The man shook his head, impassive and immobile as stone. "The petty squabbles of your city are of little concern to us. Go back."

"They will be, if Scotland Yard's forced to turn over every stone in this borough – including yours – because this man went free. I just want a little information."

His lip curled, but the man crossed his arms and gave a curt nod. "Describe to me your smuggler."

Hawke lifted her hand. "So high, with light brown hair cut close to his head. Thick-waisted, his nose recently broken – and he might have a limp. He was wearing a dark brown overcoat and black boots as of the last report."

"We know this man," he said, lifting both heavy black eyebrows. "His goods were not welcome. He has been…encouraged to trade elsewhere."

"His goods? Then you know what he was smuggling?"

He frowned, and Fenris felt a distinct lowering of both temperature and tolerance. "_Liricheska. _For those who are _beskrovnyy –_ bloodless." The man turned his head and spat, and Anders sucked in a breath. "Your city crawls with them."

"Closer than you might think," Hawke muttered, and though Fenris threw her a warning glance the man had already brought his heavy gaze to bear on her face, as if only just realizing she was not an in fact an insect beneath his feet.

"Why do you ask me these questions? You are not Scotland Yard."

"A vested interest in his product. _Not _like that," Hawke added at the dawning alarm spreading over the man's face, but the damage was already done.

"You are _beskrovnyy_?_ Vas, beskrovnyy_?"

"_Nyet_," Fenris said sharply, but the man was already reaching for a slender silver whistle at his throat. Hawke tensed beside him and Fenris put one hand back for his sword—

"_Ostanovit_." The deep voice came from the road behind the man, rough as gravel and with practiced command. The first man snapped a salute so precise it might have sliced bread, and to his right emerged a man so massive he was closer in size to a bear. He wore the same double-breasted uniform as his companion, though he had general's bars across one arm and a black half-cloak thrown over his shoulders; on his breast was pinned one medal, a red diamond with silver lines interlacing across it at right angles. He stopped beside his subordinate and surveyed the group assembled before him; his gaze swept across them like a tide, and then to Hawke he said, "You ask many questions for one who would not be noticed."

"We did not mean to intrude upon your evening," Hawke said, respectful but not obeisant. "We were tracking the whereabouts of a lyrium smuggler and found ourselves here. Nothing more."

"It is as my lieutenant said. He has moved on."

"Have you any idea where?"

His eyebrows lifted like stones pulled laboriously from wet sand. "I do not know. I do not care." Then, before Hawke could speak, he asked, thoughtfully, "Why does it matter to you?"

Hawke glanced at Fenris, who shrugged. The general seemed to be a man who valued truth; at the same time, his lieutenant's reaction to the revelation of Hawke's nature did not bode well. At last, Hawke said, "The lyrium he has been selling is corrupted. It's poison."

"And you would concern yourselves with the fate of your city's _beskrovnyy_."

"Of course!" Anders burst out, ignoring the calming hand Bethany had placed on his shoulder. "We're not like you – we don't _torture _our kind for being something they can't help!"

"Anders," Fenris warned, but he was cut off by a sharp gesture.

"Do you know what they do to their vampires? Do you have any _idea_? They sew their mouths shut so they can't feed on anything or anyone; they sew their eyes shut so they can't see if dawn is coming until they're utterly dependent on their handlers for safety and food. And if they step one foot out of line, _ever_, they stake them to a rooftop and leave them there until they burn."

"_Ugh_," said Hawke, and Bethany looked past nausea, but the general only crossed his arms.

"Creatures such as those cannot be trusted," he said as if it were obvious, and Fenris winced to hear a sentiment that had once been so near his own presented in so reasonable a tone. "We provide to them the control they lack."

"Against their will – against all human decency—!"

"Anders," Hawke murmured, her voice tight, and he subsided with an acrid glare.

The general continued as if Anders had not spoken. "Every creature has a purpose. The _beskrovnyy_ are cursed with great power; we ensure they keep it in check. You," he added to Hawke, his gaze focusing like a falcon honing to prey, "would do well to restrain your own."

Anders swelled in fury and Hawke looked hardly less angry, but Fenris stepped forward before either of them could damage the situation beyond repair. "_Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten_," he said, the words rough on his tongue, and held himself straight as the general's gaze swung to him. "From each according to his ability. These people have a purpose – they keep the streets safe and guard the nights when no others would. There is direction in that."

He could feel Hawke's eyes on the back of his neck, could hear Anders's snort of disbelief; but when the general looked away at last it was as if he had been flung from a storm's wave to the sudden safety of shore. "Your friend speaks truth," he said at last, and spread one arm to encompass the silent, darkened city behind him. "This place is a nest of rats, feeding and breeding and spreading disease. There is little cure for a corruption that runs so deep, but I have heard of the efforts of the Hawke. Keep your friends close under your wing, and know that General Aristov is watching."

"I will," said Hawke, her chin lifting, and before the general could change his mind or Anders could speak she was leading all four of them back down the way they had come. "_Don't_ stop," she said sharply when Anders appeared inclined to linger, and a lifetime later they turned the corner into a better-lit street of safety. Anders and Bethany strode ahead, Anders's injured tones carrying back even to where Hawke and Fenris followed behind. Bethany shook her head and murmured something that made Anders laugh despite himself; Hawke smiled at that, then put the fingertips of one hand to her forehead.

"That," she declared, "could have gone very badly."

"He knew your name. You would have found your way out in the end."

"Or he might have decided that it was a better idea to solve the problem of my existence while it was there offending him." Her eyes slid to his behind her hand, a faint smile curling one corner of her mouth. "Good thing you were here."

A slow warmth began to unfurl in his chest, at once familiar and wholly startling. Hawke saw it; her smile widened to reach her eyes, and in a moment of sudden boldness Fenris reached up and pulled her wrist from her face. "You would have survived without me."

Her fingers slid against his as their hands fell between them and that same warmth grew brighter; then all at once her forefinger slipped along the inside of his wrist to twist around the base of his thumb. He did not know if she pulled or if he stepped forward first but he moved all the same – and Hawke's mouth was at his ear, her breath hot on his cheek, her shoulder pressed against his. "I am not so certain," she murmured, and it was as if she had lit the lyrium in his skin with her voice alone. Fenris started to turn, to speak – but her lips whispered over his cheekbone in a sudden kiss.

She drew away again before he could do so much as open his mouth, a gleam in her eyes that could be described as nothing but impish. "This _beskrovnyy _is grateful," she told him, her lips quirking at his speechless bewilderment, and trotted off after Anders and Bethany. "Come on," she called over her shoulder. "We've got to track down this smuggler, remember?"

His legs moved forward before his mind. _That _was still adrift in unexpected warmth, floating in disbelief and the sudden stirring of desire. He did not permit himself to blush, nor his hand to touch to the place her lips had brushed; instead he set his jaw against the weakness and followed after Hawke, as always, wondering how an evening so near disaster had turned so unexpectedly to hope.

They found the smuggler, as it happened, in a flea-bitten shack on Watling Street not a dozen meters from the Tybalt Tree marker, where the city's ancient gallows had once stood. From there it took little time to dispose of the tainted lyrium and send the smuggler on with one of Donnic's prison-wagons, and by three o'clock the four of them were piled into Bodahn's coach with the matched chestnuts. Not another hour passed before he was safe in his room, in his bed, and though his cheek still burned where Hawke had touched it he slept quickly.

That night, he did not dream.

-.-.-

"Harder."

Fenris grimaced but tightened his grip. Sweat slid down his temples and pooled in the hollow of his throat, in the creases of his elbows.

"What are you, a baby bird? _Harder_!"

"Be quiet," he gritted through clenched teeth, but Isabela's snort galvanized him into renewed effort, and with one last gasp he forced the palm-wide strap of Indian rubber over the locking mechanism jutting from the deck.

Isabela grinned and propped her elbow on the railing where the whole waist-high contraption rested. "There, now. All it takes is the proper motivation."

"Which does not explain why I am the one who has reset this every time."

"Motivation and nice arms."

Fenris sighed and shaded his eyes against the sun. The sky was brilliant today, blue and cloudless as a painting, the waters of the Queen's Channel as calm beneath them as glass. Isabela had found him that morning at Hawke's with Varric in tow for a small job of her own, the promise of good weather and calm winds alight in her eyes, and with Hawke asleep and his own health nearly returned Fenris had seen little reason to refuse. The yacht itself belonged to one of Isabela's old flames – or conquests, Fenris wasn't certain – but regardless, after a brief protection mission that morning for some of the man's antiques, Isabela had managed to finagle from the owner the sleek, shallow-lined vessel's use for the afternoon in return. They had spent the day on the channel's open waters in good humor, making use of both the year's last few days of warmth and the yacht's inexplicable but entertaining miniature ballista mounted at the starboard rail.

Which, as Isabela smacked the trigger, launched two clay pigeons into the air in long, whistling streaks.

Fenris swore, one hand going to the little pistol at his waist – but Varric was there first, his ludicrous antique revolver outstretched above him, and with two precise shots the pigeons shattered in quick succession. Isabela rolled her eyes as Fenris, with another curse, began to stretch the rubber strap over the trigger again. "I don't know why we keep trying," she said, thumbing her bandanna away from her forehead. Her dark blue tunic was secured at her waist with a wide leather belt, though the gentle winds managed to catch the soft wide-legged pants she wore to toss them around her ankles. "You win this game every time we play."

"You just can't disguise natural skill, Romani."

"You might make the effort," Fenris grumbled, forcing the band into its notch again. He _was _tired, but the work was light and the pay as excellent as anything he could expect, and to feel the muscles that had two weeks ago been torn and wounded stretching comfortably again was something with which to be pleased. Bethany did excellent work; he could concede that. Anders…

Well. Anders was Anders, and his crusade for the rights and safety of the dead as fervent as ever. There was little changing that.

"Ready," said Isabela, and Fenris lifted his borrowed pistol – but the spring of the ballista jammed instead with a horrendous creak of metal and wood, and the pigeons launched all of three meters before splashing sadly into the blue waters of the bay.

"Well," Isabela said, peering over the rail, "I guess that's that."

"You do not know how to repair it?"

"You don't fix ballistae, Fenris. You use them until they break and then you go and find another one. I think there's a law."

"With which you are always concerned," Fenris said, his voice dry, but he did not object when Isabela grinned and patted the empty rail beside her in invitation. There were other pleasure-boats on the water besides theirs today, though none so close as to be seen clearly; here and there heavy barges steamed by with innumerable crates stacked atop them, lashed to the deck with straps as wide as Fenris's shoulders. In the distance he could see the curve of the southern bank and the London skyline rising behind it, grey and gleaming in the sunlight.

For a moment Fenris was struck mute by the sheer absurdity of the situation. How many voyages like this had he made on ships just like this, silent and pliant and ever-watchful for the glittering, jeweled beckon of his master – and now here he stood in broad daylight on the golden deck of a ship as fine as any of Danarius's, not as a watchdog but as a guest in his own right, bare-footed and bare-headed and standing beside a beautiful woman – a _friend _– for no other reason than he wished to. It was impossible – it was _laughable _– and it was utterly, unbelievably real.

And it was all due to Hawke.

Fenris rolled his shoulder slowly, feeling the pull of the place on his ribs where Hawke had removed her sister's stitches several days ago. There was little left of that rain-soaked night save the paper-thin line of a scar, and Bethany had assured him that even that would fade with time; it twinged on him all the same, occasionally, when he thought suddenly of the way Hawke had looked when she had moved to stand beside him against the things Danarius had sent – or of the raw hurt in her face when he had come back to himself in her house to find his fist wrapped like a stone around her heart.

With a shake of his head, the image was gone. All that was left was Isabela, her elbow propped on the rail, peering with interest at his face. She lifted an eyebrow, and to cover his confusion Fenris looked away.

"I think that counts," she called then, glancing to Varric, and Fenris heard the man guffaw before pulling out a small black leather book from his belt.

Fenris turned. "What does?"

"Nothing for you to worry your fine silver head about, miláček," Isabela singsonged, but Fenris was already moving, already plucking the book from Varric's hands to his indignant shock, already thumbing through the thin ciphered pages until he reached the last one with two dozen tally-marks inching across it, the page which was labeled, simply, _Fenris._

"What is this?"

"Spoilsport," Isabela muttered.

"Nothing," Varric said hastily. "Not much. A little something you needn't bother with."

Fenris studied him a moment, Varric's arms crossed in defiance over his open red shirt, his booted feet spread wide on the deck – and then Fenris crossed to the rail in two quick steps and dangled the little book over the open sea.

Varric let out a squawk of horror, and Fenris felt the stirrings of a grin twitch at the corners of his mouth. "Now," he said, though there was not near enough heat in his voice to maintain the pretense, "perhaps you will consider reversing your position."

"I'll never talk."

The book slipped a thumbslength closer to the water.

Varric flinched but held his ground. "Do your worst," offered Isabela, abruptly sounding much more the pirate than either of them. "He's got nerves of steel and a will of iron; he'll never give up his secrets, even if you burn his book or drown it or throw it to the ravaging teeth of a hundred wolves. The mysteries in there he'll take to his grave, watery or otherwise, and if you—"

"I think you can stop now," said Varric.

Isabela snorted, then said, "It's nothing sordid, anyway. You just get this little furrow, right here," and she put the pad of her thumb between her eyes, "every time you start brooding about Hawke."

Fenris blinked. "I do not."

"You do. You're doing it right now."

It took more effort than he expected to relax his eyebrows, to force down the embarrassed flush that threatened to swallow him. "This is a joke."

"Could be. Isn't."

"And you have decided to…_count_?"

"Well, the wager was whether you'd notice before Hawke did, but now I think we'll have to come up with new terms."

Fenris grimaced at the open page; then, deciding, he tore the leaf free in one quick movement and tossed the book back to Varric, who caught it with a noise like a wounded animal. "That was entirely unnecessary," Varric grumbled, touching the torn place as if it might bleed.

Isabela laughed. "Don't worry. I remember it was up to twenty-two, because you made that comment of them being two of a kind."

"Oh, that's right; because Hawke was so distracted she nearly lost her ear to that marksman with the rifle. Let's see – one, two, three—"

Fenris sighed and began to shred the paper with his name into tiny pieces that were caught up in the wind, opening his hand to let them vanish in a breath to scatter over the sea. Meaningless it might be, it seemed, but it soothed his pride all the same. He had not even _denied _it, not really – and that in itself was a mark of his growing complacency with these people – but there seemed little point in dissembling to those so well-versed in the practice and who seemed inexplicably to count him a friend of their own, and he could neither deny their observations nor his interest in that comment of Hawke's distraction. His thoughts flickered again to the sight of his name, stark and black at the top of that bare page – and then another thought struck him, a glimpse of another page that had caught his eye as he had skimmed through.

"Sunshine," he said, and Varric's pen stilled on the page.

"What about it?" he asked, and the forced ease in his voice made Fenris turn to face him squarely.

"There were marks under that word as well. Fewer."

Varric glanced to Isabela, whose face bore no mark of a grin now as she moved back to the railing, and then he let out a sigh. "Ah, shit," he murmured, and Fenris began to feel he had stumbled upon something not meant for easy discussion.

"I – forgive me," he said, awkward and uncomfortable. "Perhaps I should not have—"

"No, it's fine," Varric said, waving away his apologies. "You might as well know. Ought to have known sooner, really, but the subject doesn't come up often anymore and it's _so_ hard to work family tragedy into casual conversation. Just know that I'm telling you this because you should have the truth, not because I'm profligate with other people's secrets, and if you tell Hawke I told you I'll make sure you're the experimental subject in Corff's next line of inquiry."

"Of course," said Fenris, because it seemed the correct thing to say, and Varric settled back into his chair where it bumped against the mast.

"I can't remember the last time I told a story this way," he murmured so quietly it was almost caught away by the wind, and then he steepled his fingers at his chin. "Let me start like this."

-.-.-

Many years ago, in the hot and dusty plains of Texas, a farmer and his wife lived with their three children. They were not rich but they were happy, because even though their lives were hard and their days were long, they found contentment in the honesty of their work and meaning in the goods they provided for their little town, and for many years there was something as close to peace between them as there could be. It was not always calm, for three headstrong children all near each other's ages and two of them twins besides would never agree on everything, but in the end their father made peace and their mother kept it, and they made do as best they could.

Then, when the oldest was twelve, their country blistered into war.

Their father tried to keep them from it for a long time, and for a long time he succeeded – but the reach of war is great and always greater when faced with those few who shun it, and in the end the fighting reached even their little town to shred it apart. The farmer had tried to help the wounded and heal the sick, regardless of which side they fought for, but when the townspeople discovered him hiding a northern man who had been shot and wounded in battle, all their history meant little in the riot that followed. It did not matter that the man was in truth a boy barely taller than his musket, nor that the farmer's wife and three children watched in terror; fear and rage had hold of the little town as surely as a hand closes around a candleflame, and that night the farmer paid for his kindness with his life.

When dawn came the next morning it came slowly, coldly, pale and choked with smoke-grey ash. The wounded boy-soldier was gone, fled into the night; their father was dead; and though the townspeople came to them shamefaced and grieving their mother quietly hitched the horses to the wagon and moved her family westward.

Eventually they settled again, and out of their sorrow they found a new life. It took time, as all grief does, but the farmer's wife was a resilient woman who had given up a great deal to be with her husband, and she found that despite her sadness she and her children were made of stern stuff. They were happy there, for a time, trading with townsfolk and Indians for their crops and the baskets and weavings and labor she and her children could offer. The children grew, taller and older, and soon they were not children anymore.

Then rumors arose of a sickness in the south.

They paid the murmurs little mind at first, ignoring the half-heard whispers that slithered through the streets, the tales of men and women who raved in madness for three days before rising from their beds with preternatural strength and quickness to strike at those nearest. Their lives had been touched with enough tragedy; they did not see the need to borrow trouble.

But like many things, trouble found them whether they wished it or not, and when the oldest of the three was two-and-twenty the sickness swallowed her town whole. She kept her mother safe, and her younger siblings safe, and did the best she could to help those who were ill because her father had done the same, but the illness advanced daily and in growing strength, and one day in the fall she returned in the evening weary and heartsore to find her home in flames and her family screaming in fear.

The town blacksmith was an ogre of a man, tall as a tree and as thick, and when he had fallen ill three days ago the eldest had thought him strong enough to perhaps pull through again. But now he stood over the ruin of her family, her brother's throat in his hand, her sister huddled and bleeding at his feet, and her mother in the broken doorway was bent with sobs and fear.

There was little she could do against a man so strong but to do nothing was unacceptable; she took up her father's staff without hope and then, from the shadows of dusk, a man's voice rang out to stop the beast, and she turned.

It was the boy soldier her father had saved. Boy no longer, though, and soldier no longer; now there was fatigue in his movements and old anger in his eyes, but he was strong and quick and the eldest was strong and quick, and between them they brought the blacksmith to his death.

But it was too late. Her brother was dead and her sister was dying, a slow seeping wither of her heartblood into the land that she had tilled and tended, and at last the man said that there was nothing for her but death or a fate worse than death. Her mother was weeping, past words, and her sister's face was white and still and – wounded to the soul from the loss of her brother and the loss of her home, the eldest begged the man to save her sister.

So the man bent his mouth to her sister's mouth, and then to her sister's throat, and when it was over the woman who had thrived so well in the southern summer days, who had loved sunshine so dearly she was named for it – would never see sunshine again.

With her death and un-death the family knew they could no longer stay in their little town. Flight was their only recourse, and when the man with tired eyes told them of a place across the sea which would harbor them, which would keep them safe, their mother remembered old titles and old friends who might offer aid. They fled eastward together, booked passage on a ship that took pity on poor refugees of war. They were away with the tide and the first pale light, and death went with them.

They did not look back again.

-.-.-

There was no warmth left in the sunlight. The winds had turned without his noticing, bringing with them a gentle coolness that settled into skin and bone and breath alike, and Fenris turned his back to it in futile protection. There was little he could think to say, less under Varric's steady gaze and steadier voice, acutely aware of both the respect and the trust the both of them had offered with this recounting. Isabela lifted her face further into the crossing breezes; a sigh slipped from Varric as he resettled himself in his chair, and Fenris at last found his voice.

"And so the man who travelled with them…"

"Anders, yes," said Varric, his eyes on the horizon. "And Anders who turned Sunshine into shade."

"I had thought she…" Fenris made a gesture in the air, meaningless and uncertain. "Perhaps I was mistaken."

"No," said Isabela abruptly, though she did not look at him. "They're both carrying torches like they'll die without them, but they're too stubborn and too bitter to do a thing about it. It is," she added, a drop of true annoyance coloring her tone at last, "_intensely _frustrating to watch."

"Lifetimes of resentment," Varric said, "aren't easy to overlook, especially when there's little hope of relief over the next hundred years either. Anders took her from her life and he failed to save her brother; Sunshine will never forgive him for that. And he'll never forgive her for caring less about his causes than he does."

"And Hawke?"

"Keeps the peace, glues them together. Sometimes. Sometimes she even convinces them to give it another shot, which I've heard works for a few years before they fall apart again. They'd never survive without each other, any of them, but that doesn't keep them from trying to kill each other every once in a while."

Fenris shook his head, disbelieving, and watched without seeing the passing of white ships in the blue-grey waters before them. "I did not realize Hawke was not the first of the two to be turned."

But if he had hoped to hear that story, he was disappointed. Varric's eyes went distant and he shook his head in flat denial. "Uh-uh. That one belongs to Hawke alone. I owe her that much."

Fenris allowed him the point, though the concession did little for his curiosity. Bethany first – and by _Anders_, of all people – and Hawke after, Hawke last. He did not know how it could have come to be so and found himself beyond eager to know, not simply for the tale but for the better understanding it would give him of these people – and of Hawke. He wanted to know more. He wanted to know more of _her._

Absurdity indeed.

"Then the tally-marks under her sister's name have meaning," he said at last, remembering the page that had brought them to this point, that had ended so suddenly the easy camaraderie of a lazy afternoon on the channel.

"Oh, yes," said Varric, and the curve of his lips held little but sadness. "It's how often she laughs."

-.-.-

The sun was well setting by the time Fenris made his way home – his way to _Hawke's _home – at last. Lost as he was in his thoughts he missed both Bodahn's greeting and Orana's curtsey, though he did manage to heed her reminder that the vicar would be by later that evening to visit the sisters of the house. Fenris had been astonished when he'd first discovered the man's regular presence, but regardless of his misgivings he'd found Sebastian to be a forthright, sensible man despite his insistence on familiarity with creatures such as Hawke, and though at times he seemed more suited to a Scottish lordling than a servant of the church Fenris found himself believing his intentions were noble.

Hawke certainly did, anyway, and Fenris was coming to realize that her first impressions were generally accurate. She had few illusions left, she'd told him, in respect to both her friends and to herself, and Sebastian had been one of the few people she'd known not to balk when she'd at last revealed to him why she was quite unable to attend Sunday Mass. Instead he'd offered to come to her twice a month in the safety of secrecy to let her and her sister take communion as they could, and between her sister's eagerness and Sebastian's earnestness Hawke had found little reason to decline. "After all," Hawke had told Fenris, her mouth twisting wryly, "what other priest would hear a vampire's confession?"

But as tolerable as Fenris found Sebastian, he was in little mood for his company tonight. His head spun with thoughts of death and blood and old stories; he needed silence of his own to sort them through, to lay each thread neatly beside the next until he could see the picture they made between them. Anders had turned Bethany – Bethany had been turned first – Hawke's death had come later, and in a way that even Varric would not speak of without permission.

The stairs to his room – to the room he was using for the moment – he took quickly. He did not fear detection; Bethany and Merrill would not be up for hours yet, and Hawke's own bedroom was located at the other end of the hall, but all the same his chest loosened with relief as he closed the door behind himself at last.

Hawke had had a brother, once. Bethany had had a twin. They had been happy in the west, farmer and farmer's daughters, sunlit and cheerful if not carefree. It was harder to imagine than he expected; he had little frame of reference for the States and none at all for farming, and if there had been any part of him used to hard labor in that way it had gone with Danarius's ritual. Death, though—

Fenris knew death.

Fear, too: the hard choking terror that split a man from his mind and made him capable of terrible things. Fenris had seen both sides – had _been _both sides, both in service to Danarius and afterwards, when his life became the desperate and unending song of flight. The Hawke sisters were still what they were, he knew – but Fenris was conscious that lying to himself would serve little purpose, and he could not pretend he did not know that driving need for safety, for _freedom_; could not pretend he did not recognize the fear like a spurred heel that chased him night and day alike as he hunted for any shelter in the storm.

And even though it had come at a price, the Hawke sisters had made a home at last. Fenris envied them that.

The last rays of sunlight disappeared, and slowly, one by one, stars began to appear in the window-panes above his desk. Fenris let them come without caring, let the darkness of the room settle around him like a comfortable coat. He would not ask about Hawke's history again, neither of Varric nor Isabela nor Hawke herself; they had given him their trust and he would trust them in this matter in return. Hawke would tell him in her own time, Varric had said, and on Varric's word he would wait. Fenris had learned nothing under Danarius if not patience, after all.

Suddenly, without warning, a woman's low sob rippled through the air.

Fenris was on his feet before the sound had begun to die away. The noise had been faint, quiet, thin with distance and the thicker walls between them, but he knew the sound of sorrow and before he had quite realized it he had moved, his hand was on his door. The hallway beyond was empty and silent and for a moment he thought his memories had triumphed at last – and then it came again, louder, and a quick and wordless babble followed after.

Fenris stepped forward, uncertain but unwilling to leave such suffering untended – but before he could move Hawke's door opened abruptly at the hall's other end, and Hawke herself emerged in white-faced silence, bare-footed, one hand clutching a shawl around her shoulders. Their eyes met only a moment, only long enough for Fenris to see that this was an old, old routine, and then without a word she slipped into her sister's bedroom.

The cries grew louder as the door opened. Fenris waited, caught between seconds, caught in the impossible half-thoughts between waking and dreaming as Hawke's voice rolled low and gentle through her sister's nightmare. A minute passed, then two; still Fenris stood outside Bethany's door, listening to Hawke's slow half-singing like a man spellbound, lost in the nonsense words and lullabies one sister murmured to the other to ease her troubled mind.

Eventually Bethany quieted, then fell away into silence. Hawke's voice lasted a little longer, but when that too trailed off Fenris returned to the sanctuary of his room. This secret was not his to know – this _kindness _was not his to understand, not when his resolve wavered so dangerously already. His few things in the room took little time at all to pack; by morning he would be back in his rooms at The Hanged Man, safely away from this house and its sorrow and its shadows, safely away from compassion and dreaming lullabies and the unbearable peril of _need._

He would not be chained to another again, even Hawke.

Even if, in the darkest places of his heart, he wished it.


	8. A Sanctuary is Sought and Found

**AN: **I am so predictable. **  
**

Also, I'd like to take this moment to thank everyone who's taken the time to leave a review. My class schedule has been beyond hectic these last few weeks so I haven't had a chance to respond to them, but please know that I do read and treasure every single one. Thank you so much.

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

A Sanctuary Is Sought and Found

-.-.-

Doom is the House without the Door—  
'Tis entered from the Sun—  
And then the Ladder's thrown away,  
Because Escape—is done—

—_Emily Dickinson_

-.-.-

Fenris was not fond of trains. They were loud and cramped and they stank of smoke, even in the wind, and the majority of his memories involving them were of desperate flight. The last time he had been on a train had been nearly a year ago this November, when a pack of Danarius's hunters had cornered him in Reims; he had barely managed to swing himself aboard an empty car ahead of them, and for six hours winter had cracked and whistled through the corner in which he huddled, bitter with cold and fear as the snow-covered French countryside whipped past him.

It did not even matter that he held a first-class ticket in a first-class car, purchased of his own money and of his own volition. That too was Hawke's doing, his coin a result of Hawke's employment; and because it was easier to be silent Fenris let himself be so, a branch in the ceaseless winds of Isabela's cheerful prattle and Anders's half-serious warnings and Hawke's own contributions to both.

He was grateful that at least their car was mostly empty. Save for an elderly woman snoring in her compartment next door and a small, round man with a bowler hat and impeccable moustaches opposite her, it seemed few other than themselves favored such late trains along the Belgian border. Their own compartment was comfortable enough, he supposed; he had room for his legs despite Isabela's bobbing kid boot and, more importantly, room enough for his elbows to keep from brushing against Hawke by accident.

Hawke, who had said nothing when he had moved his things back to Varric's inn; who was just as friendly as before he had tried to tear her heart from her chest, before he had seen her wake to comfort her sister.

More than important. Vital.

"It isn't the size, it's the _handling_," Isabela said, leaning back against the seat so that her arm draped behind Anders's shoulders. "It didn't take me long to learn _that._"

"But handling won't help you when you're outgunned twenty to one."

"Of course it will. Shallow keel and a swift sail and all you need is one good reef."

"So now you're banking on terrain. Goodness, I thought the queen of the eastern seas needed no man. Or reef."

"Keep grinning, Hawke, and we'll find out how deep the Thames really is."

Hawke laughed, Isabela's answering kick to her shin not enough to dim her smile, and Fenris snorted at their damnably infectious enthusiasm. By the end of the first hour he had been drawn into their meandering conversation; by the end of the second, he forgot nearly all of the train but the distant rhythmic _shht_ of engines and the easy rocking of their car. Even Anders was lively with wit and good humor, recounting several anecdotes of his own misadventures with the Lady Theirin after her marriage, including ones of mislaid kittens and restless spirits so ludicrous they might be true.

The journey passed swiftly, certainly moreso than Fenris thought it had any right, and just before one o'clock in the morning the train began to slow with their arrival at the Falaise Rouge station. A car met them there, black and so glossy it threw back starlight, and when Anders saw the face of the tall, dark-haired woman who stood beside it he smirked.

"Always a pleasure to see you, Cauthrien. How are you? How've you been?"

"Delighted," the apparent Cauthrien said acidly as the porters began loading their bags in the car. "I trust you'll allow the drive to be as painless and _quick _as possible."

"It's a terrible thing to lose one's charge," Anders said, his voice solemn as he clambered into the back. "I will do my best to ensure we arrive at our destination with the same number of passengers as at our departure. Will that be painless enough?"

Far from it, it seemed, if the murderous look on Cauthrien's face was any indication, though her irritation visibly lessened at Hawke's proffered hand. "Sorry about him," Hawke said sotto voce, then added, "It's good to see you again. How's the minister?"

"Quite well. He'll meet you with the king after you've eaten and refreshed yourselves."

"Some more refreshed than others," Fenris muttered, Anders positively gloating as he waved at Cauthrien through the rear window.

The drive was not long, the roads well-marked and winding easily through the hills that sloped gently around them. The estate itself was relatively small, especially compared to some of the villas Fenris had known under Danarius, but unlike those gilt prisons these windows were so brightly lit in welcome they made the darkened woods seem darker. One hill rose sharply behind the house, framing it with a thick spill of evergreens that spread to both sides of the grounds, though the lawn that lined the drive was trimmed and tended and lined with rosebushes. Fenris could hear running water as they exited the car; Cauthrien saw his look, and explained that a branch of the Escaut River forked just north of the grounds to send a number of tributaries fingering into the woods on either side.

"I hear some of them are quite scenic in the spring," Anders offered at that, and Cauthrien scowled before she turned away.

Fenris gritted his teeth, and as Anders sauntered past him towards the house he caught him by the sleeve of his shabby brown coat. "Must you antagonize _every _person we meet?"

"Cauthrien's not a person," Anders said as he pulled free. "She's a hound who makes a living tracking down perfectly innocent escaping prisoners. I don't like her; she doesn't care for me; we all get along just fine."

"That is not an excuse," Fenris snapped, but before he could say more Hawke came between them, looping her arms through both their elbows with a warning glance that reminded him strongly of Aveline at her most maternal.

"Be _nice_," she said as she shepherded them towards the front door, her voice as severe as her grip on their arms. Unspoken went _or else_; and despite himself Fenris found himself uneasy at the threat. He was not sure what Hawke considered punishment, but he had few illusions that he would escape with his dignity intact.

Then a voice called out from the side gardens in greeting, and Fenris forgot her warning entirely in the face of the man who had jogged forward from the rosebushes to meet them.

"Hello," said Alistair Theirin, monarch absolute, celebrated philanthropist, and valued military mind, as he dusted dirt from his tweed coat and doffed his boater hat in an awkward bow.

-.-.-

Alistair was, in a word, _ridiculous._ Handsome, certainly, and charming in an unfortunate hangdog sense, but it was nearly impossible to think of him as a king. He never seemed quite in control of all his limbs, like a pup who'd grown too tall too quickly, and for every moment of refined gentility he had two graceless moments following in quick succession. His wife the Lady Elissa Theirin, née Cousland, joined them just in time for introductions, a lovely, long-limbed woman in Prussian blue evening dress who seemed both more elegant and more reserved than Fenris had expected. She was more than kind as she ushered them inside, but her smile did not come nearly so easily as her husband's, and Fenris could see the first lines of age and worry at her mouth.

As regarded his markings and his hair neither of them even seemed fazed – they knew another man with tattoos, the lady Theirin told him, and Fenris let the matter rest.

"Well, come along," Alistair said, gesturing with his boater hat down the hall. "We've saved you supper. Nothing terribly fancy, I'm afraid, but we didn't think you'd want to dress for dinner after a long night of travel."

"Don't tell me you made _sandwiches,_" Anders said to Lady Theirin, who put her hand to her mouth with a sudden sheepish smile.

"Old habits die hard," she said, her voice surprisingly low-pitched, and she shared a brief glance with her husband as the doors at the end of the hall opened into the dining room.

The solid oak table was laden with cut sandwiches and pitchers of iced water and wine, the places laid with sturdy china, and though there were footmen at each end of the room Fenris was pleased to find neither Alistair nor his wife stood on ceremony at this hour and with so familiar a company, and in short order the six of them were tucking heartily into their meal. The sandwiches were tasty enough for their simplicity, though there was something about the ham that made Fenris despair of it, and by the time the platter was little more than crumbs the room's spirits had lifted measurably.

"All this is fascinating, I'm sure," Isabela said later as the servants began to clear the table, her voice strident enough to carry over the other conversations, "but I was promised _maps. _Is our dear Minister Mac Tir going to grace us with his presence any time soon, or have I got to go chase him down myself?"

"No need," said a new voice at the doorway, and Fenris turned to see a tall, older man in military dress stride into the room. "The maps are in the library, Captain. I'm sure you remember the way."

Alistair stood, nearly knocking his hat from where it dangled off his chair-arm. "My Minister of Foreign Affairs," he said to the room at large. "Loghain Mac Tir."

The man bowed as Isabela threw him a saucy salute and slipped around him to the safety of the doorway. His hair was dark, though it had begun to grey at the temples; his deeply-lined face seemed weary, as if he had seen too many difficult decisions in his life, and when he sank into a chair beside Alistair his knees creaked with the effort. "Excuse my tardiness. I was on the line with one of our ambassadors in France."

Alistair groaned. "Don't tell me Morrigan's gone off on her own again."

"She says she is doing what is best," the minister said, lifting a heavy eyebrow. "Regardless, we should discuss the reason we're here."

Hawke leaned forward. "Leliana mentioned something of the East, but she wasn't specific."

"Manchuria," said Minister Mac Tir, "is in a state of unrest. Since the Boxer Rebellion, the Russian forces have only strengthened in the region despite their promises of evacuation. Now Great Britain treats with the Japanese for control of the same territory, and our eyes in Harbin tell us that tensions rise with each passing day."

"And the people of Manchuria are left to the mercy of both sides," Fenris said to no one in particular, thinking of a people he had known once in another war, bold and strong and free with their affections, and gone now like so many of his memories.

Minister Mac Tir threw him a sharp glance, but inclined his head. "It is necessary, of course, to consider all aspects of such a potential conflict."

"That's one way to put it," Hawke muttered, leaning her elbows on the table. "And what do you want us to do about it? You know I'm not exactly a paragon of political acumen."

The queen smiled and Alistair laughed, and even Mac Tir's severity seemed to lessen. "The Japanese ambassador has agreed to receive a diplomatic envoy to forward the interests of peaceful negotiation," he said. "As long as the envoy itself is neutral in its dealings with all three countries involved."

"And our role…?" Hawke asked.

"You _have _done this sort of thing before," Alistair pointed out. "The British Foreign minister asked for my advice. Leliana recommended you herself."

"And why doesn't she go?"

"We thought the two of you might go together. It seemed to work well enough the last time." Alistair ignored Hawke's snort and continued, glancing across the table. "And Anders is the most familiar with the region of anyone here."

Anders startled, as if surprised to be so singled out; then he quirked a wry eyebrow. "I know the dirtiest alleyways by moonlight, you mean, or at least what they look like when running from authorities. I don't know how much help that is in negotiating peace."

"Every bit would help," Lady Theirin said. She met her husband's eye and nodded; pushing back from the table, she gestured at the door. "But you must be so tired from your journey. This can wait for tomorrow; let me show you to your rooms."

Privately Fenris thought the minister looked more than capable of continuing the conference, but he could not deny his own growing fatigue. Alistair and the queen showed them to their respective rooms where their luggage already awaited, and in short order he was unpacked and between the cool, expensive sheets.

A slave – and the guest of a king, he thought, and he closed his eyes.

-.-.-

"I see you share my opinion of fishing."

Fenris glanced back from where he leaned against a cypress tree to see Minister Mac Tir approaching from the path, his smile small but sincere. "Less the activity than the quarry," Fenris said as the minister joined him, and turned back to the river where Alistair stood in grey and blue, his trousers rolled up past his knees, an antique fishing rod in his hands and his straw boater hat cocked sideways on his head. "Though he seems to enjoy it."

"Alistair has always been easily amused," Loghain said without malice, and when Alistair waved at him in greeting he nodded.

"You sure you won't join me?"

"Quite sure," Loghain said, his voice dry. The three of them were silent for several minutes; then to Fenris he said, "Three days now; you are enjoying your stay here, I trust."

"Well enough. I have had – few occasions to travel for pleasure."

"And even now it is curtailed by talk of war."

"Not my war," Fenris said shortly, and they fell silent again. The weather was on the warm side of temperate, and the day was clear and sunny, and he found himself grateful for the tree's spreading shade. Alistair's line snapped taut for an instant and he let out a whoop – but a moment later it went slack with the escape of its price, and he drew in his line to find the hook empty and the bait stolen.

"Damn," he said, and looked over his shoulder. "Can one of you toss me that canister of crickets?"

Fenris lifted an astonished eyebrow; with a sigh, Loghain Mac Tir plucked the aluminum container from the grass and handed it to his king. "My lord," he said at Alistair's thanks, bland enough to sap color from the sky, and returned to his place under the tree. He must have seen Fenris's face, because his mouth twisted in something almost a smile as he said, "Sacrifices must occasionally be made. I have done what was needed for the good of this country."

"Crickets."

"As you see."

Fenris watched as Mac Tir crossed his arms and watched Alistair cast his line into the river, his smile fading with memory as if he saw another man there, one almost but not quite the same. A gentle breeze picked up from the south, carrying with it the smell of meat roasting for lunch, and Fenris asked him, quietly, "Is he a good king?"

Loghain stirred. "He is an idealistic king."

"That is not the same thing."

"No," he said, and turned to meet Fenris's gaze. "He is much the same as your Hawke, I think."

"Not my Hawke," Fenris said reflexively. "And regardless, there are – some differences."

"Yes. In cunning, for one. And lifespan, and – certain dependencies."

Fenris's eyes darted to the minister at that, but he could hear nothing of hostility in his voice. Still— "What do you mean by that?"

"Don't be alarmed, man. I mean no harm." He let out a breath through his nose and looked to the river again. "I know that certain alliances are necessary in times of war, no matter how distasteful I might personally find them."

It was his own reasoning again, his own mind – and the words were bitter to him as saltwater, unwelcome and unfriendly in the light of what he had come to know of Hawke. Still, he was not prepared to speak in her defense – not to a king's minister in a king's home when he was little more than a surplus guest – and instead he frowned and looked away. In the river, Alistair pulled hard on his line, and this time the hook held.

"No matter," Mac Tir said at last as his king began to reel in his catch. "I suppose it will come out right in the end."

"As do I," Fenris murmured, and with a cry, Alistair jerked a sizeable trout free from the river.

"All right," Alistair said, beaming. "Who wants to help me gut dinner?"

-.-.-

They did have the fish, but Fenris was pleased to find that the cook had anticipated the company and prepared a number of wild grouse for those not inclined to seafood. He had been seated to the left of Lady Theirin; Hawke was across him in grey and scarlet, Anders to her right, and with Loghain and Isabela on Fenris's other side they were a full table of seven.

At the head of the table, Alistair stood and raised his wineglass. "To friends," he said, "and old homes and new."

There was something in that Fenris did not understand; but Hawke looked as if she knew what it meant, and when she raised her own glass her eyes were serious. After that, though, they tucked into the meal in earnest, conversations arising on both sides of the table, and as the grouse began to slowly vanish from the serving platters the Lady Theirin turned to Fenris.

"So, Fenris," she said over Isabela's recounting to Alistair of her recent venture to the Cape of Good Hope, "Marian tells me you're from Italy."

"Yes," he said, and wondered that so little of the truth reached the word. "My earliest memories are of the streets of Rome."

"A lovely city. I remember we passed through it once in the spring – there was a beautiful little park near it on the sea, just south of Ladispoli, with a thick grove of olive trees. I spent many happy afternoons there."

"I know that place," Fenris said in surprise. "With the white stone wall."

"Yes! You could sit on the wall and watch the water roll against the seawalls below you."

Anders's eyes were on him, but Fenris paid him little mind as he told the Lady Theirin, honestly, "That was one of the only places of peace I knew in that city."

"Then I am glad you found it," she said, smiling, and on the other side of the table Isabela leaned back with a sigh.

"I'm bored," she said, and pushed back from the table. "I'm going back to the maps."

Alistair gestured at the door. "You're more than welcome," he told her. Isabela managed a deft escape in the next moments, her cream-colored skirt whipping around the doorframe with a flourish, and Fenris found himself envious beyond reason of the freedom she'd won when the conversation turned, as these things always did, to memories of battle and parties and acquaintances in which Fenris had had no part. The wine flowed easily and the room soon grew overwarm, and at some point both Alistair and he removed their jackets to sit in their vests and shirtsleeves. Anders did not seem to feel the warmth at all.

To her credit Hawke seemed to realize his exclusion, unintentional as it might have been, and as the night wore on she was careful to speak of their own recent exploits, or of places she knew he had been, but to his faint surprise Fenris discovered that he did not mind this unexpected glimpse of Hawke before they had met. Only last week he had wished to know more of her; here was the golden opportunity placed directly in his hands, unlooked-for but not unwelcome, and as Alistair teased Hawke over some slight she'd once given him at a pub in Wales Fenris did not keep himself from laughing with the others.

"I didn't recognize you!" Hawke said in high dudgeon, her wineglass tipped dangerously at the king. "Your nose looked broken and you had _scruff_ – you didn't look anything like yourself, and I really don't think I can be blamed for not expecting to see a ruling monarch in that terrible pub."

"You're quite right," agreed Lady Theirin, smiling. "There are some days I'd hardly know him if it weren't for—"

"Don't say it—" Alistair warned.

"—his love of fine cheeses."

Alistair slumped in his chair, grumbling at the laughter that rippled around the table. "Why does everyone _always_ bring up the cheese thing?"

"It's all part of your charm, dear," his wife told him, but relented, turning her gaze to Hawke. "But speaking of expectations, will you be staying with us through your birthday? It's – next week, isn't that right?"

"Yes," said Hawke, shaking her head at Fenris's sudden lifted eyebrow, "but I doubt we'll be staying that long. I can't say I'm that fond of them these days, anyway."

Loghain Mac Tir glanced over from his place at Alistair's right. "Are you so jaded already?"

"Well, this year makes fifty-four. Is that enough to be jaded?"

Fenris was startled into speech. "You are older than I."

"Am I? I'm not surprised. I'm surprised _you're _surprised."

"That is not—" he cut his hand across his words, tried again. "I know a little of age slowed out of time. I did not realize yours had stopped before mine."

She raised her glass to him in a wry toast. "An elliptical way of calling me old to my face. Never fear – I'll fetch a cane and bonnet posthaste to relieve your worry."

"All relief would be yours," Fenris answered dryly, amused despite himself until Lady Theirin leaned forward.

"So you're older than you look as well. Is it the…?" She trailed off, touching a finger to her chin.

Fenris lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug, uncomfortable and prickling at the sudden attention as the room as a whole focused on his tattoos, but Anders of all people came to his rescue. "I'd suspect so," he said for Fenris, the professionalism of the doctor suddenly subsuming his more irksome attitudes. "Lyrium prolongs life – we've known that since Flamel. And not only _ours_," he added, gesturing at himself and Hawke. "I don't know if you remember the Molinelli experiments from the 1860s – a bit before your time, perhaps, but he found that small doses of lyrium could let a man live indefinitely."

"I remember Molinelli," said Minister Mac Tir, frowning. "All his subjects went mad."

"Well, yes," Anders said with a gesture of concession. "It tended to do that to living humans. Unfortunately."

Hawke looked at Fenris then, and though her eyes were guarded he thought he could see worry in them. "What about Fenris?" she asked, her voice light. "That's a lot of lyrium in one place."

"I don't know – do you feel mad? Madder than usual?"

"No," Fenris said shortly, and Anders's lip quirked.

"There you have it. He says he isn't mad."

"Relief indeed," Hawke murmured, and her gaze caught his like a hidden snare. Her eyes were dark – he did not know if it was the dimness of the room or something more – when had she last eaten? When had he begun to _care _when she'd eaten? and for that matter, when had he last been looked at like this by someone else – by a woman he—

By the time he tore himself free of her eyes Lady Theirin was speaking again, looking across the table at Anders. "But I seem to recall that you worked on something along those lines yourself, just a few years after."

"He did," Hawke murmured distantly. "Day and night. He would drink whole phials of raw lyrium at one time – in a moment he would become an entirely different person. It was – unsettling."

Anders straightened, his gaze decades in the past, his voice just as far and farther as he sifted through his memories. "I knew there was a way to make it stable in living tissue. I _knew _it. There was something about blood, or the iron in blood, something that kept it safe if it were mixed _just _so…I was close. I remember; it was the winter of 1879, because the snow kept falling through the cracks in the roof in the Exeter clinic. I'd made it _so _close I could taste it – days –_ days _were all I needed to finish the formula."

"So – what went wrong?" Alistair asked.

Anders's mouth thinned with fury, and Hawke answered for him. "Robbery. Someone smashed in the window and took everything: the apparatuses, all the lyrium, all his notes, and when they were finished they burned the clinic to the ground."

"_Ash_," Anders groaned, one hand twisted into his hair. "All that work – gone."

"He was insensate for two days. Raving, wild…he didn't come out of it until my sister put a kitten on his chest and told him to get a hold of himself."

"The best advice she ever gave me," he said, and though his smile was strained it was there. "I wish I knew what'd become of that research."

At last Fenris found his voice, found in the white fury trembling through him the strength to push himself to his feet. "_I _did."

The whole table stared, struck mute, pale tongues of silver light shivering across their faces as he lost control of the lyrium set under his skin. "I did," Fenris said again, his voice unsteady with old, caustic anger, with acrid epiphany. "Your precious _research_ – Danarius – I watched him turn through the pages of those leather journals so often the sheets began to crumble. Every new page brought pain; every paragraph meant my torment. Your words – you – your work_—_" he spread his arms, lifted his chin so that the sporadic racing of lyrium-light under his clothes could be seen clearly, incoherent with rage and bitterness and the memory of agony. "_This_ is what your _research_ has brought!"

"That – isn't fair," Anders said, though his face was pale. "I meant to help people – I meant to _save _lives—"

"And instead you destroyed mine." Fenris laughed, a hard knife-edge of a sound, and ignored Hawke's sudden movement. "I cannot even die to escape it."

Anders rose to his feet, anger blackening his face now, his hand splayed on the table as if to support himself – or hold himself back. "I'm sure you could manage it somehow," he snapped. "You're so talented at everything else. But instead you blame everyone in the world for your suffering but yourself and sink your teeth into anyone who tries to help, and then you whine about how much you've gone through alone. You're chasing away any friend you might ever have, you enormous hypocrite, and you can't even _see _it!"

"_You,_" Fenris snarled, his teeth bared, the words even on his tongue to accuse Anders of the same thing, to throw back into his face all his own painful history with Bethany – but as his mouth opened his eyes flicked to Hawke where she stood half-risen from her chair, her face frozen in realization at the secrets Fenris was about to fling into the light. "_You_," he said again to Anders, his fists clenched, and Hawke's eyes slid closed – and then he tore his head away, forced back the words into his throat, shoved so hard from the table his wineglass rattled against his plate. "_Cazzo_," he spat to the wall, distantly aware he was still glowing, distantly conscious that Lady Theirin had crossed to put her hand on her husband's arm. It was too hot – the room was _stifling_, thick with anger and hurt and unwelcome memories and if he did not find cleaner air he was going to choke.

His hand was on the door before he realized he had moved. Now voices lifted behind him, Alistair's and Anders's and above them Hawke's as she held the others back, and somehow he knew he owed her gratitude for that but there was precious little in his mind but grief and hot hatred, and when at last he burst into the crisp and cooling breezes of the October night it was like the first breath after drowning. His hands were shaking – somehow through the blood pounding in his ears he heard again that sound of rushing water, and without a second thought he strode eastward into the woods.

The trees were thin so close to the house, and the little creek off Alistair's river not far; a few dozen meters along the narrow path that split the trees and he was on his knees at the bank, heedless of the dirt staining his charcoal suit, heedless of the water that trickled down his throat as he splashed his face with his hands.

After a moment his head came up, his hair dripping, his gaze fixed sightlessly on the black woods before him. Anders's work. _Anders_, of all people, doctor, _healer_ – his research burned into Fenris's skin. He should have known – he should have _expected_. God found no irony so compelling as his pain.

Fenris cursed again and pushed himself to his feet. It would be impossible to return to the house now, not with anger still coursing like thickened oil through his blood; the moon was still three-quarters full, more than enough light to see by even as it filtered through the trees, and once he had fixed the estate's location in his mind Fenris put the creek to his right and the path straight before him, and he walked.

-.-.-

In a way it was a relief, his fury. It was not that he enjoyed being angry, not exactly – but anger was familiar and anger was _comfortable,_ and in the soft and gilded world Hawke had brought to him there was little room for it. What lived in her house was old and brown with age, bruised deep and hidden under many scars; what he felt now was bright and sharp and hot, as vivid as the sun and just as scalding.

It fueled him as few things did these days, lengthening his stride and quickening his breath as he walked the leaf-strewn path. The forest around him was silent as a grave, washed pale and colorless by moonlight; here and there an owl lifted from a tree, the only sound a soft hush of displaced air, and once he saw a fox's eyes flash green at him from the underbrush across the creek that accompanied him. The path led him against the water's flow and slightly uphill, wandering occasionally away from the creek before returning to its banks again, and save the distant splash of a fish and the water's own burbling whispers he could imagine himself the only breathing thing in the wood.

The path forked. Fenris kept to the right, choosing the stream-side trail over the broader one that led off into the darkened forest. Later it forked again; again he took the right, trusting the widening creek to keep his path straight.

Fenris lost himself in memories, in the steady one-two crunch of his booted feet over dried leaves, in the slow circling light of moon and stars that sifted through the trees around him. Reflections shivered in the creek like a glass-bright coin dropped into dim embers to scatter them, there and gone again with the shadows thrown by overarching trees, by the smooth brown stones that split the water's surface without a ripple. There was no time, no pressing urge to return – there was only the wood.

Slowly, like water drained from a cistern, his anger began to seep away to leave him cool in just his shirtsleeves. Shame came first after it – to have lost his control so badly before Hawke, before a ruling monarch! Danarius would have flogged the skin from his back – and then, when that ebbed, the worn, familiar fatigue of impotent frustration rose to take its place. It was not, though it hurt to admit it, even Anders he truly hated. Fenris knew the astringent taste of one's efforts twisted to another's purpose, knew too that as little as he cared for Anders the man would still not willingly torture another, nor permit the atrocities that had been visited upon Fenris in the name of progress. He had blamed Anders because it was _easy _to blame Anders, in the same way that it was easy to be angry and easy to run when he should have stayed.

Hawke, he thought, had not wanted him to go.

That thought brought another into his head, of her eyes trapping his in candlelight; then, because that too was easy, he thought of how she had looked the night he'd chased her into the rain, when her face had been black with lust and her teeth had sunk like knives into another man's throat. Of the sight of her slipping into her sister's room, bare-footed, a shawl clutched tightly to her chest.

Abruptly, the path ended.

Fenris blinked and slowed to a stop, not certain at first what had happened; then he realized the wall cutting across his creek was stone, a tumble of boulders and rocks three times his height which formed the base of a sudden sharp-rising hill ahead of him. The creek widened to a little pool at the base of the stone embankment, shallow and green with moss, and into that pool a waterfall spilled from somewhere above the rocks, no wider than his spread arms but white with froth. The path curled left around the pool and then tapered into nothingness; Fenris walked to the very end of it and put one hand on a water-bright stone at the level of his eyes. It was cold and damp and clean; and it was a mark of an ending, or a beginning. He had fled far enough – now he knew it was time to return.

There was truth behind him, whether or not it was easy.

Then he turned, and found that the sky had begun to lighten with dawn. Fenris stared – had he really gone so far? – but the moon was gone, the sky waning pale, and in the distance the trees had begun to color red and gold. Squaring his shoulders, he took two steps – and stopped at the sound of hoofbeats.

He knew who it was before the rider came into sight, Hawke's muttered litany carrying easily through the trees. Then she rounded the last bend of the path on a grey mare dappled darker at the withers, hatless, riding boots incongruously shoved under the grey-and-scarlet dress she'd worn to dinner. When she saw him at the pool, relief and irritation warred so suddenly on her face Fenris thought she might be in actual pain.

"Do you know," she said without preamble, "how long I've been looking for you?"

"Too long," Fenris answered, stepping back with a wary glance as she reined the mare close – too close – to where he stood. It rolled one brown eye and stared at him, and Fenris thought it seemed displeased with what it saw. "The sun is rising," he told the horse cautiously.

"Oh, I'm aware. I am _astonishingly_ aware, as it turns out, but when Cauthrien suddenly bursts into the war-room to say there might be assassins on the grounds, apparently _someone_ has to go off and fetch the sulking company before he gets himself shot. Easy, Sunder," she added to the animal, patting its muscled grey neck as it snorted and shifted a few steps beneath her.

She reached down a hand to help him onto the horse, but Fenris ignored it. "Assassins?"

"So Cauthrien said. The king and queen were bundled off to safety at the first whisper – apparently the mastermind of this little plot also killed her parents several years ago – and no one could find Isabela, so I was sent out to search and _not_ to rush you, but the sun really is beginning to come up, and I'd be grateful if you'd just get on the horse."

"You ride back. I will—" The horse snorted and Fenris stepped back so quickly he nearly tripped on his own feet. "I will walk."

Hawke's eyebrows shot into her hairline and Fenris winced, but she said nothing as she reined the prancing horse beside him again. At last, she asked, "Do you at least have your gun?"

He shook his head – though Hawke's cartridges, wrapped in her white handkerchief, he had tucked into his vest pocket, it had seemed inappropriate to dine with a monarch with the Remington thumping at his hip. He had left it in his suitcase. "Ride back. Your time is growing short."

She hesitated – and then the sound of a gunshot burst across them, distant but deafening, the echo thundering through the trees like a physical thing. Hawke's head whipped toward the sound; then she looked down at him again, her eyes hard, and again she stretched out her hand. "We don't have time for this. Mount Sunder and let's _move_."

Fenris drew in a breath through his teeth, but there was little choice now and before he could ponder the action too deeply he took her hand and swung up behind her. The horse sidled sharply left before Hawke snapped the reins; Fenris gritted his teeth, one arm going around her waist in an unconscious brace as his legs settled against hers.

"Are you all right?"

"Just _go_," Fenris snarled, too aware of her back against his chest, of her waist shifting under his fingers as she leaned forward. Her legs slid against the horse's ribs and the mare broke into a trot, then a canter; Fenris clenched the hand at her waist despite himself and felt Hawke's back shudder with a silent laugh – he opened his mouth at her ear—

A rifle cracked, sudden and loud and _close_.

Hawke jerked at the noise, the yank on the reins sending the mare stumbling towards the edge of the path before Hawke managed to straighten her head again. Fenris caught his breath—"_Careful_," he snapped, and Hawke shook her head roughly, her laughter gone. His hand slid on her waist as she shifted her weight, the horse trotting forward again – and he realized, suddenly, that his fingers were wet. He leaned forward, over her shoulder, thinking perhaps he had not dried his hand well after touching the stone—

His fingers were red with blood.

Fenris stared, appalled, _bewildered_, and even as he stared Hawke pressed her left elbow to her side just above where his hand had rested. "Not now," she said through clenched teeth. "I'm fine. I'll be fine."

"You've been shot," Fenris said, as if she had not realized it—and a second rifleshot exploded in the trees ahead of them.

This one caught Hawke in the meat of her right arm, throwing her to the side – she cried out, gripping the reins, and tried to recover her balance but it was too late – the horse bolted forward, startled and maddened at the smell of blood, and Hawke and Fenris toppled off in a graceless heap.

Fenris was on his feet first, his hand closing around Hawke's good arm before he had even begun to straighten. Another shot rang out from the path before them, this one so close he felt the wind of it on his cheek – if they could not go forward they had to go back, and without hesitating Fenris slung Hawke's arm over his shoulder and turned, away from the horse galloping towards her home, away from the encroaching sunlight.

Hawke herself still had not said a word, her wounded right arm crossed over her chest to clamp her hand hard across her bleeding side, the dark stains spreading across her grey dress with each stumbling step. Her eyes were nearly closed; every now and then she caught a harsh breath, as if she had moved too suddenly, but Fenris could spare little attention for her comfort and none at all for the shouting voices beginning to rise behind them, and in less time than he had expected they were splashing into the shallow pool at the base of the stone cliff.

"A literal dead end," Hawke said then, her voice thin with pain and fatigue. "I suppose you'll get to see me crisped after all."

"Save your maudlin sentiments," Fenris snapped, guiding both of them forward towards the wall. Here was the stone he had touched – and here was the steady trickling breeze behind it that marked an open space – and safety. It took precious seconds to find a gap of any size but at last he did, a narrow crevice almost his height half-hidden behind the waterfall, tucked between two boulders so large a dozen men could not have shifted them.

Hawke slid through first, gasping as a corner of the stone scraped against her arm, and then Fenris was in after her, both of them soaked to the hip with ice-cold creek-water but paying little heed to the discomfort. The little cavern was not large, three meters at the deepest, but it was dry and warm and _dark_, and without another word Hawke sank against the far limestone wall and closed her eyes.

Fenris watched her a moment too long, his heart pounding in his throat – but voices sounded above the steady rush of water and instead he slid back to the crevice, leaning just far enough to see three men emerge from the edge of the woods. Two of them carried rifles; the third had a small pistol in his left hand. All three of them moved with cold intent, heads swiveling left and right in silence as they entered the little clearing with the pool. Fenris glanced back to Hawke; her eyes were open now, though tight and lidded with pain, and when he gestured for silence she nodded and let out a noiseless breath.

The men moved closer, all of them in heavy coats and sturdy boots, and the first one with the pistol splashed into the pool.

"They can't be far."

"Not with the girl bleeding." One of the men with the rifles looked up, surveying the rise of trees above the waterfall that hid them. "Out of sight over the hill?"

The man with the pistol followed his gaze, then gestured. "Go up and find out. Howe wants this place clean by sundown."

His subordinate nodded, pulling his hat lower over his eyes, and circled out of Fenris's sight. He heard boots crunch and slide on leaves to his left, then above him, and a voice called out, "I don't see them."

"Keep looking. Go up and help him," he added to the other. "I'm going to backtrack to the third group. Don't come back until they're taken care of."

The man saluted with his rifle and vanished after his fellow, and after he watched his climb the man with the pistol turned on his heel and headed back down the path. Fenris waited without moving until he was gone, until the footsteps and even the echo of footsteps above him had disappeared – and then he was across the little cave, crouching carefully at Hawke's side, one hand lifting to hover uselessly between them.

"It's all right," Hawke told him, her voice quiet, but even in the dimness of the cave Fenris could see the dark and shining blood spreading over her palm and trickling between her fingers, staining her dress from waist to hip. Her arm was worse, the bullet having split open a gash as long as his palm where it had passed, and her hand had begun to tremble where it was clamped against her side.

"It is _not_," Fenris hissed, and before he could question his purpose too deeply he laid his hand over hers at her waist and pressed down. Hawke let out a choking gasp and threw her head against the wall; Fenris grimaced but did not relieve the pressure. "Have you no healing?"

"What do you think I've been doing?" she asked him through clenched teeth, through sharp breaths that were louder than her whisper. "I just happen to be…terrible at it, thank you – _ah_—"

Fenris bit back his admonition as Hawke's hand lit faint blue under his, a weak and sickly glow that barely breached the dimness of the cave much less closed over the edges of her wound. As near as he was Fenris could see that the bullet had passed clean through her side, a second bloodstain a handspan back from the first marking the place it had torn free; it was on this graver exit wound Hawke had clearly been focusing, the edges of the skin pink and raw but pulling together even as Fenris watched.

"It is not enough," Fenris said when Hawke loosed the light with a gasp, and he bent closer. "It needs to be bandaged. As well as the arm."

"Master of the obvious, you bloody – _no_, use the…underskirt. I like…this dress."

"The dress is ruined," Fenris snapped, but did as she asked, using the keen-edged knife she'd pulled from her boot to cut several long strips of muslin out of her cream-colored hem.

"You…underestimate how talented…Orana is at removing…bloodstains."

"And bullet holes?"

"Nothing a little…patch won't fix."

Fenris said nothing in response, and Hawke soon fell silent herself. Three trips were needed to the pool to bring back enough water in his cupped hands to clean the wound on her arm; Hawke flinched only at the first and said nothing when he widened the tear in her sleeve around the gash, peeling back the grey fabric until the edges were clear. In less than a minute the wound was dressed and bandaged as tightly as Hawke could stand it, but when Fenris threw an uncertain glance to her waist Hawke caught his wrist with her good hand.

"You've been very kind," she said quietly, and Fenris snorted at the obvious untruth, "but let me try this one myself."

"Of course," he said stiffly, and after passing her the remaining dressing and bandages he went to lean against the crevice that guarded them from the world. Morning had come in earnest by now, what forest he could see through the waterfall a riot of yellow and scarlet, and a narrow finger of the morning's light crooked across the cave's floor at his feet. It was nowhere near enough to reach Hawke where she sat at the back – and the gladness Fenris felt at that realization he could not quell – but it was bright and hot and impossible to escape, and unless he took to the wood on his own to find what dubious aid he could there was little chance of either of them venturing elsewhere until dusk. No coat, no _pistol _– a vest and shirtsleeves and lyrium, and nothing at all of worth.

There was a shift of fabric behind him and a muffled grunt of pain. Fenris closed his eyes, then opened them again, and just loud enough to be heard over the waterfall he said, "Will your friends be all right?"

She let out a tight breath of laughter and fabric rustled again. "Who, Alistair? I can't imagine him possibly…falling to these amateurs."

"As you have," Fenris said, and regretted it at once.

"Searching for you, _signore_. And I might…point out that if I hadn't been…there, you'd have been shot instead."

That – was a startling thought, and one that made his heart lose a beat or two behind the rushing sound of water, but he shook his head fiercely and the moment passed. "Anyway," Hawke continued through his reticence, "the Theirins…will be fine. Loghain was master at arms before he…became minister, and even if for some reason he…turned on the king, Alistair is as durable as a brick. And his wife is a…swordsmaster famous in three countries for…her prowess in battle."

"The queen?" The woman in the Prussian blue gown, who'd smiled at her husband's ridiculous hat and asked him of peace in Italy? He could not see it.

"Not all queens need their…husbands to do their fighting for them, Fenris."

He said nothing, allowing her the point, and listened instead to her breathing grow thinner and more rapid, to the hushing of fabric sliding over skin, to the noises of agony caught in her throat as she moved.

"Damn," she whispered at last, and the sound was choked with tears of frustration. "It seems I need your help after all."

There was no joy in that concession, no gloating that she had been forced to yield her pride; there was only relief that he might be able to help ease her suffering. Fenris turned and came to her without a word, rolling up his white sleeves to his elbows as he knelt expectantly at her side. He was glad to see she was not fully disrobed; the bodice of her dress was made of two scarlet lapels dipping towards her navel over a grey silk sheath, and the tiny line of buttons hidden under one of the lapels, now undone, had allowed her to shrug her good arm out of the sleeve without baring herself completely. Only a muslin chemise was left to guard her modesty; this she had pushed up to her ribs, uncovering the expanse of pale skin on her side that even now seeped blood around the edges of the dressing she had not been able to secure.

"I can't hold it and…tie it at the same time."

"I understand," Fenris said, and he did. Too often had he dressed his own wounds in secrecy and in hiding, teeth clenched around a leather strap as he cleaned and tied and splinted whatever injuries Danarius's hunters had managed to score before their deaths. Hawke held the dressing in place with her good hand when Fenris placed it there; he himself threaded the bandage between her dress and her skin, around her waist and back again in clean crisp movements, both of them silent as he worked. There was no embarrassment between them despite Hawke's state of undress and Fenris's own conflicted heart; this was more than that, more than anything so petty as mortification, and when at last he slid the end of the makeshift bandage into itself it seemed natural to help Hawke slip into her sleeve again.

"Thank you," she said, her voice level, and then she added with a trace of her old humor, "and while we're on the subject, I'd also…like to thank you for not shooting me…the night we met."

Fenris blinked, so thrown by the unexpected reference that it took him two tries to speak. "Why?"

"Turns out it really quite hurts," Hawke told him, and quirked a pain-tight smile. "That is not, by the way…an invitation for later. In case you're…wondering."

"I will not shoot you, Hawke."

"Ah, friendship," she sighed, and closed her eyes.

Fenris watched her a moment more, counting without meaning to the shallow breaths that lifted her chest, and when she said nothing else he was left to sit back on his heels and consider the last word she had spoken. _Friendship_, she'd called it, and though Fenris had little experience in the concept he knew it was a word not meant to describe any part of his life, not meant to name his relationship with a woman he'd met barely two months ago – and one of the creatures he'd spent the last decade hunting besides.

And yet, here he was all the same.

With a frustrated breath, Fenris moved to sit against the wall beside Hawke. He did not know if it was bravery or stupidity – or something else – that held him here; he knew only that two months ago he would have been gone with the first light, leaving without a second thought the wounded creature to bleed out the last of its half-life in the unforgiving light of the sun. And here he was all the same, bandaging Hawke, guarding Hawke, and he did not know _why _– or rather if he did he did not wish to, shying from the question as he shied from the knowledge that even if she had insisted he would not have left her.

She had not once asked him to go, not even for help. He wondered, then, as Hawke's breathing beside him evened out into something like sleep, if she had feared his answer as much as he.

The morning crept on. Twice Fenris left the cave, once to relieve himself and once to check the position of the sun and fetch fresh water, and near noon he heard again the voice of the man with the pistol pass close by their hiding place. This time, though, it was raised in panic and pain, and before it vanished into the distance Fenris thought he heard the baying of hounds behind it. But no one came near them again and he would not leave Hawke, and if when he returned he settled nearer her than he meant, he did not let himself dwell on the reason.

_Dangerous_, his mind whispered, but this time his heart echoed back another word, another name that Hawke had given him instead: _friendship._


	9. A Storm-Wind Swells

**AN:** Sorry for the delay, everyone. I've been ill.

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

A Storm-Wind Swells

-.-.-

No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own lifeblood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.

—_Dracula, _Bram Stoker

-.-.-

Fenris woke with a start.

For an instant every muscle in his body tensed at once – his surroundings were unfamiliar and to be disoriented meant death – but piece by piece his memories dropped into place again, of Anders and _fury _and of walking without direction in the dark, of Hawke and gunshots and daybreak come too soon. The cave was dimmer now, the crooked finger of light hanging high on the opposite wall with sunset, and his back ached where he leaned against the stone.

He rolled his shoulders – then stilled utterly, because somehow without his waking Hawke had slipped to curl on the ground beside him until her head rested on his knee. Her face was turned away from him, angled towards her wounded shoulder, her good arm draped over her waist, and Fenris frowned to see that both bandages were reddened through with blood.

He lifted his hand and lowered it again, doubtful and insecure; his fingers ghosted over her tangled hair where it was knotted at her neck, along the bare line of her throat, brushing without touch until Fenris grew weary of his own indecision and wrapped his hand firmly around her good shoulder. "Hawke," he said, his voice quiet, and looked again to the setting sun. "It is nearly night."

She did not move. After a moment he said her name again, and slid his grip from her shoulder to her waist. Still Hawke did not shift, did not wake – her stomach barely rose with breath under his hand and Fenris could not stop the sudden upswelling panic that lodged at the base of his throat. He touched the bandage at her side and his fingers came away red and slick and shining, and when he slid his other hand into her hair to turn her face towards his it was white, her lips slack and pale, her eyes closed and without movement.

"Hawke," Fenris said again, and this time it was the loud and frantic call of desperation. Her head lolled lifelessly against his knee. "Hawke – wake _up –_"

He did not know what he was saying, hardly knew what to do; with every second what was left of her life bled out onto the stone around him, mocking him with the vivid color of her sanguine heart. He crushed his hand against her waist, caught in half-mad thoughts of closing the wound with pressure alone – but the blood trickled out in spite of his efforts, undammed, slid hot and quick over his fingers and his palm until his hand was less flesh than blood. Fenris cursed and clenched his fist against her ribs, useless, _helpless_, and the force of it sent a spark of lyrium-light skittering up his wrist—

Fenris sucked in a breath.

Then he was moving, scrambling, graceless and not caring in the slightest as he yanked the knife from its hidden sheath in Hawke's boot. The part of his mind that kept him in check and kept him _alive _was shrieking in panic and denial; he silenced it ruthlessly, beyond those concerns when Hawke's life hung here in the balance, and the sudden absence of that age-familiar whisper was not enough to make him pause.

Here, now, his history meant nothing. He could not let her die.

He would not allow it.

The steel-sharp point of the knife came to rest on the inside of his wrist, where the flesh was split by a long white-sparking vein of lyrium. He hesitated only a moment, distantly amazed that he had somehow found his way to this place – and then he bore down on the hilt and the knife slid easily across his skin and through it, splitting flesh and lyrium alike until the first dark beads of blood began to swell onto his wrist.

He flung the knife down, used that same hand to grip the back of Hawke's head; trembling, he pressed his wrist to her mouth. The blood smeared over her lips, darkening them in a mockery of life – but there was no response, no quickening breath, no draw against his skin that meant that she would live. Fenris snarled something wordless and desperate and _still _she did not move, even at his voice; his heart pounded against his ribs like a blacksmith's hammer, each hard beat forcing out more of the blood Hawke so gravely needed and could not drink.

Fine – if she wished to die here in a lightless cave like a crippled deer, he would treat her as one. He had seen country laborers do this with orphaned fawns and suckling pigs too small for the teat; he dragged his thumb against his own wrist, collecting the blood that dripped there, and when he had Hawke's head braced gently against his thigh he slid his thumb between her lips. Her tongue was dry, like sandpaper against his skin; he coated it with his blood, smearing it over the insides of her cheeks and her gums and under her tongue where the veins ran.

He felt it when she rose. Not to consciousness, not yet – but a bone-deep shudder rippled from her head to her booted feet, and her still-cold lips closed around his thumb. A moment more and her tongue began to push against him, along the edge of his nail, looking for blood, for lyrium, for _more_ – that was enough, and with his arm aglow from elbow to fingertips, Fenris pulled his thumb free and replaced it with his bleeding wrist.

He did not know what he had expected. There was no gentle draw, no weak and fragile pull of her lips over his skin; Hawke let out a low, animal groan and closed her mouth over the place where he bled like a vise. An instant's memory flashed over him, hot and wild – _Danarius's teeth at his wrist, Danarius's lazy smirk curling around his heart like iron – _and then Hawke gasped again and the image vanished upward into smoke. Her throat moved in long swallows, her tongue pushing at the open wound on his wrist. Every now and then her teeth closed on his skin, not sharpened to pierce but as if she could not get close enough for satisfaction. Fenris could barely understand it – he was shadowed by another world and snagged in the thorns of this one, lost at once in the mire of his past and the present reality of Hawke's mouth at his wrist and Hawke's weight on his legs. There was no sound in the dying light of the cave but the quick, shallow breaths drawn in through her nose.

Then she widened her mouth, and he caught a glimpse of red-stained pointed teeth just before they sank into his wrist.

The pain was sudden enough and _sharp_ enough to shred what was left of his ghosts into bright mist, and Fenris nearly jerked his arm free. "_Careful_, Hawke!" he snapped as if she could possibly hear his annoyance, and for the first time her eyes began to move behind her eyelids. She did not wake, but her teeth eased free as her lips slid over his wrist again, as he flexed and clenched his hand in old habit to keep the blood flowing, and when she settled into place Fenris allowed himself to lean back against the wall. The last light of sunset dragged over the ceiling-edge of stone opposite him – and was gone beneath the trees to leave only a rose-pale sky behind.

Ten years since he had fed another like this.

Even aside from the thoughts of Danarius, the familiarity was unnerving. He knew feeling of teeth better than his name, the rhythm of cheeks hollowing with each draw of his blood from his veins, the blackening of the farthest edges of his vision as she began to touch the limits of what he might give. But he knew too that he did not regret it, even as he watched the edges of her wounds begin to pull together like a syrup collecting at the bottom of a bowl, slow and steady and in the end as smooth as if it had never been broken. Her drying blood was still there, and the bandages still marked the places she had been torn – but her breathing was strong and her color rising, and even under the stain Fenris could see the flush in her lips.

Quietly, without warning, her eyes opened.

Fenris did not speak. Her eyes were as black as he had ever seen them, pupils so dilated there was nothing left of iris, and he knew from experience that she saw little and heard less. At last, slowly, her gaze drew into focus on his face, on his mouth and his ear before flicking to his eyes. Her lips moved against his wrist as if she wished to speak; and when the realization of where she was and where _he _was lit in her eyes he saw them flare with panic.

"Be easy," he said, his voice quiet and low and rougher than he expected.

Hawke's eyes slid shut; then her good hand came up to meet his, feathering along the backs of his half-curled fingers as she closed her lips and pressed them to the place on his wrist that still bled sluggishly. Without quite meaning to his fingers bent under the pressure to touch the curve of her neck below her ear, and when she neither spoke nor pulled away he grew bolder, slid his fingertips into her hair as his palm cupped her cheek. "Be easy," he said again, hardly knowing what he meant, and Hawke turned her face into his hand.

"Fenris," she said hoarsely, her eyelids lifting, and this time the black did not wholly swallow the blue. "I – _why?_"

He wished to look away. Instead, he held her gaze and found the most honest answer he could give. "This was not the death you were meant for."

"I see," she murmured, her voice rough, but there was something in her face that seemed to snare his unspoken thoughts. "Martyrdom sans blaze of glory isn't good enough for you."

Honesty had caught him; even now it freed words he would have held. "I can think of little that would be."

Her lips parted, and for several seconds her gaze fixed on his in the silence of the cave. He did not know what to do, nor what he _wanted_ – he only knew that to let this moment pass them by would be a mistake so grave they neither of them would recover.

"Hawke," he said, because he had to say something, "I am glad you are not dead."

"Loosely speaking."

Fenris snorted; and before he could weigh the consequences of the action he bent and rested his forehead against hers. Her skin was cool, her eyes half-lidded with fatigue and something else, something brighter, and when he let his thumb slide over her temple she let out a long, slow sigh that brushed over his cheek. Her lips touched the corner of his mouth lightly enough to be an accident and for a moment he wanted nothing more than to turn his head that last little distance and close the space between them – but she was weak enough already for how unsteadily she breathed, and he himself uncertain with the flood-tide of memory, and he crushed the impulse back into his heart.

"And _I_ am glad," she whispered, an answer to a thought unasked, "that you are here."

He did not answer. Her fingers tightened around his wrist to keep him still, to hold him where he bent; he let himself be held, his forehead against hers, her hair spilling over his knee, her weight on his thigh and his hand on her cheek. Something had been forged here in blood and blade, something strong and bright as steel, and if the water falling over stones outside was the only witness in the purple twilight it breathed no murmuring song but its own.

Over the trees, the moon began to rise.

-.-.-

Later, when Hawke was well enough to rise and strong enough to travel, they stood together at the moonlit almost-mouth of their makeshift refuge. His hand she held in both of hers; though he had washed the blood from his wrist the wounds remained, the original slice he'd made neatly bisecting the two round puncture wounds she'd later given him. The lyrium kept his blood from darkening as it dried; instead it stayed as bright a red as it was fresh, and Hawke drew her thumb across the stained skin where it was split.

"They will be fine," he told her, but she shook her head.

"They're deep," she said quietly, and her fingers touched his wrist so lightly he could not feel it. "Besides, we've got to get back through the woods. Just let me heal—"

"Save your strength," Fenris said, knowing his voice to be too sharp but not intending to suffer argument on this matter. "Here," he added in a stroke of discernment, "tie it off with this." His free hand fished for the pocket of his muddied, stained vest; at last he found what he sought, and careful not to scatter the cartridges he pulled Hawke's white handkerchief from his coat.

She stared; she _laughed. _"I cannot believe you kept this," she said as she took it from his fingers and in short order knotted it snugly around his wrist. The white fabric stared up at him as he unrolled his sleeves and fastened the cuffs again at his wrists, and then Hawke closed her fingers around the place where the neat silk band was now hidden. "Fenris," she said, her gaze level, her voice steady and unwavering, "thank you."

There were no words in him for the tumult of his thoughts, so he settled for a nod and she did too, and then she stepped forward and he followed her into the silent shimmering pool, into the cloudless night.

-.-.-

When they returned at last to the estate, weary and footsore and tensed even then for battle, Anders stood so fast from where he sat in the parlor that he upended his chair. "_There_ you are," he breathed, and nearly faster than Fenris could track he was across the room with his arms around Hawke and his face buried in her shoulder. Hawke let out a startled laugh; Anders pulled away to hold her at arm's length, a frown twisting his features and his voice suddenly much more irritated. "Do you have _any _idea how worried we were? Your horse comes back riderless and you're gone all day – _all day_ – without one word, without even a _note_ to let us know whether you'd been killed by those idiot assassins or burnt to ash or _anything_."

"All apologies," said Hawke, still laughing as she tugged free to embrace Isabela in turn. Isabela grinned and returned the gesture, though Fenris could see she lacked any real surprise that Hawke had made it home in one piece. Relatively speaking, he amended to himself, as Isabela put one finger delicately to Hawke's torn and bloodied sleeve.

"Good God, Hawke. You're absolutely _drenched._"

"I'm all right, really," Hawke said, batting Isabela's hand away. "Truly. Fenris helped me bandage the wounds and we got them healed them as soon as we could – I'm _fine_."

"That's not the first time I've heard that, Hawke," Anders said, brisk with purpose. "And don't think I'll believe it this time, either."

"Later," Hawke insisted, and for a moment her eyes met Fenris's over Anders's shoulder before she turned away. "What _happened_ here? Where are the Theirins?"

Isabela leaned against the back of the couch, her navy trousers nearly of one color with the upholstery. "Spirited away by Mac Tir and the rest of the security detail the moment the alarm sounded. The assassins never got closer than the second grove of apple trees. Tried to take us, too, but Sparklefingers threatened all _sorts _of fire and brimstone if they dared to commit such an injustice."

"Of course we wouldn't leave. Your sister would never forgive me, for one." The words were light, but a look passed between Anders and Hawke that spoke of something older, and Anders continued, "At least now we can call off the search."

"Search?"

"Oh, yes. The right honorable watchdog Cauthrien is out looking for you under every rock and root, just as she did the last time I 'visited.' She has been retained at His Highness's insistence, because apparently we can't be trusted on our own in his winter getaway."

"That's not fair, Anders."

"Maybe not," he said, but there was little conviction in it. "At least you got to talk to him before he left, I suppose."

"And accomplished nothing. Manchuria will remain a hotbed until the Anglo-Japanese alliance is resolved. Alistair will have to find his own ambassador this time." Her eyes went to Fenris's. "London is my home now."

"Hawke and the Nightingale, together no more." Isabela shook her head, then linked her arm with Hawke's. "Regardless, watching you prance around in these togs is absolutely intolerable. Come upstairs and get changed." Hawke laughed but let herself be pulled, and in a trice the door had closed behind them to leave Anders and Fenris alone.

A grandfather clock in the corner ticked away the seconds, one by one. Fenris did not look at Anders, did not speak; if their argument was to be breached again it would be on the creature's head, not his, not after what had passed between Hawke and himself this night. The handkerchief knotted around his wrist was proof enough of that, a white flag of surrender on both his part and hers, and at least for now it gave him charity where he would have once had only gall.

Anders drew in a breath, then pushed away from the unlit fireplace as Fenris turned – and then he stood before him, his brows still tight with ire, and Fenris's train of thought was abruptly derailed.

"And you," Anders said, his chin lifted.

It was harder than he expected to keep his voice even. "Yes?"

Anders's chin rose further – and then he let out a sigh and extended his hand into the space between them. "Thank you for taking care of Hawke," he said. "And – I'm glad you're all right."

It cost him a moment of indecision, but at last he reached out to meet him halfway. "You as well."

They did not linger. This was not friendship but armistice, and Fenris had few illusions that the truce would last forever with their lifespans and their grievances still between them. But for now, for Hawke—

It was enough.

-.-.-

They did not leave the estate for another three days, in part to help Cauthrien search the grounds for stragglers and in part to allow Hawke time to recover before traveling. Fenris found himself grateful for the reprieve as well; ten years out of practice being bled had left him weaker than he had anticipated, and he was glad not to be forced to explain to Aveline why he could not lift his sword. It helped, too, that the chef retained for the week had no qualms cooking for a king despite his absence, and the regular, hearty meals went a long way to restoring both his strength and Hawke's.

During the days he walked with Isabela and practiced with the Remington; his nights they spent in discussion with Hawke and Anders of simple, easy things, of moments in their histories and his that caused none of them pain. There were at once few and astonishingly many for the sort of lives they led, and Fenris was surprised to discover that Anders could tell an excellent story when he was not held hostage by his causes. Isabela, too, though hers tended to shock as well as amuse, but they were told in good humor and as much on her as on her conquests, and Fenris could not think of a time in his recent memory spent in pleasanter company.

The Lord, he supposed, worked in mysterious ways.

But all too soon they were packed and packaged and bundled away to the train station, settling into their seats as out the window Cauthrien's car vanished into the dark. Fenris was beside Hawke again – but this time he did not force himself to wakefulness, nor fear brushing Hawke with his elbow. He drowsed when he was tired and woke to quiet conversation, and both the train and the ferry that followed were full of a camaraderie that both gladdened and bewildered him. It had been one thing to spend a lazy afternoon on the sea with Varric and Isabela in broad daylight; this was something else, this friendship of a sort he had never in his life expected to claim.

"Holidaying with vampires," Isabela asked him once, an hour or so before dawn. "Really gets your blood pumping, doesn't it?"

And Fenris found that he could not deny it.

-.-.-

Despite everything the ease persisted, even beyond the span of the journey. A number of requests for assistance had cropped up in Hawke's absence from London, including a pair from Aveline and Donnic, and near every night for a fortnight Bodahn arrived at the Hanged Man promptly at eight o'clock to transport Fenris to wherever they were headed that evening. His strength, while not fully returned, was enough to keep his sword level and his aim true, and for those two weeks he fought side by side with Hawke and did not falter.

Then, one night, near three o'clock as they were finishing their patrol for the evening, Hawke slowed mid-step and glanced over her shoulder. "What is it?" Bethany asked, but Fenris was already lifting a hand to the hilt of his sword. Hawke saw it, made a quick gesture at her hip; Fenris paused and cocked his head, listening, and – Hawke vanished into mist.

Anders sucked in a breath, but before he could shout Hawke reappeared with a crash on the rooftop of a nearby shop. Fenris could not see the figure she fought with clearly save that it was twice her size; he abandoned the sword and went for the Remington instead, leveling it at their unclear shadows. Anders stepped forward – but Bethany beat him to it, vanishing into a wisp of fog before reappearing on the rooftop beside her sister. There was a cry and a quick burst of gold-bright flame, and an instant later all three of them toppled off the roof.

In less than a second both Fenris and Anders were there, helping Hawke and Bethany to their feet and training weapons on the third, groaning figure still sprawled in the street. Hawke steadied herself on Fenris's proffered arm, then pulled free with a flash of a smile before looking down at the man at her feet. He was tall, broad-shouldered in a thick black overcoat that spread around him like a puddle, and just beyond his reach laid a squashed ushanka hat.

Hawke nudged his shoulder with one foot. "Are you alive?"

"_K chtoryu,_" the man spat without opening his eyes, clutching one shoulder. Fenris snorted and cocked the Remington, but Hawke put a warning hand on his wrist where the white band was.

"Wait," she said, and then added to the man, "I know you. You're one of General Aristov's men."

"_Beskrovnyy_," he snarled, his brown eyes slitted and glaring. "I follow you on the general's orders, no more."

"Ah," said Hawke conversationally with a grin. "The general does not trust me."

"As he should not. None of you should be unleashed as you are."

Anders made a harsh noise in the back of his throat and knelt beside the man. The lieutenant let out a pained gasp as Anders's hands went to his shoulder – and then in a slow flare of blue light that subsided as quickly as it came the pain faded from the man's face, and when Anders stood he rolled his shoulder in wonder. "_Spasibo_," he said grudgingly, and pushed to his feet.

"You're welcome," Anders told him, pursing his lips, and stepped back. "Next time don't lurk on rooftops. The falling tends to leave marks."

"I noticed," Hawke muttered, then said, louder, "and what are you looking for in your lurking?"

"The general ordered me only to observe. I will not answer the questions of _beskrovnyy._"

"Gratitude of the highest order," Hawke told Anders. To the lieutenant she dipped a low, sardonic bow, her arms spread to either side. "Then I hope you find what you're looking for."

"You should pray that I don't," he said acidly as he retrieved his hat and turned his back on the four of them. They watched him limp into the shadows without a word, and then as if on cue Fenris heard the creak of carriage wheels. He turned to see Bodahn and the matched chestnuts come around the street-corner, the gas-lamps flickering over his cheerful grin, and this time the bow Hawke dropped in his direction was entirely sincere.

"For someone so practical you are the most prescient man I've ever met," she said as Bodahn rolled to a stop beside her, and then she glanced over her shoulder. "So," she said, grinning, "who'd like a ride?"

-.-.-

Fenris had meant to go back to The Hanged Man – and yet somehow, when the carriage rolled up and Hawke glanced at him with that same compelling smile he found himself trailing after Anders and Hawke and her sister into their pale-stoned estate.

Merrill was in the library with a slim volume of fairytales, her stocking feet tucked under her and a tisane at her elbow; when they all tumbled into the firelit warmth of the room she leapt up, delighted, and in a moment's time had wine and sherry distributed amongst the lot of them. Once again Fenris's intentions came to very little; one drink swiftly became two, and then three, and when Anders moved to the piano to accompany Bethany and Merrill in a series of old-fashioned but lovely duets, he found little reason not to lean back against the sofa and simply listen.

They had excellent voices, though Merrill's soprano was the truer of the two. They sang maybe three songs before Bethany sank down beside her sister, laughing, to wet her throat with wine. Merrill smiled at the two of them and there was something sadder in it than Fenris had expected, and when Anders played a soft minor chord that rippled down the scale Fenris was somehow unsurprised when Merrill closed her eyes and began to sing.

He did not know the song – it was in some ancient, wordless, wistful language that belonged to open moors and grey skies and the soft wave of green and growing things emerging from the earth. Merrill carried the song, or it carried her, an unearthly thing before them in silver satin and grey stockings, and when it was over Fenris was not certain if she would land again or instead take flight, suddenly, like an osprey spinning away from the froth of the sea. "That's what I miss most," she said into the silence afterward, as if there was something that needed to be said. "Seeing the plants root and come to life in the spring."

"I know what you mean," murmured Bethany, and her gaze was distant as the fields. "When you could put your fingers in the dirt and feel how hot it was with sunlight, or have carrots fresh from the gardens with the day still in them."

Hawke put her arm around her sister's neck and brought her head against her own; then she grinned brightly enough to break the tension in two and said, "If you're longing for dirt, I suppose I can fetch Anders's boots from the foyer."

"I resent that," said Anders, and laughed.

If there was any sorrow left in the room it vanished at that, lost in the smiles and the happier memories and the inexhaustible decanters that lined the sideboard. Hawke told Fenris a story of Bethany trapping herself in a neighbor's rope snare when she was eight; Bethany responded with one of her own, of her twin brother wrestling Hawke and both of them ending up with black eyes at church the next Sunday. Anders refilled his glass and told at last the tale of how he had twice ended up in the river at Aveline's hands, which despite the fact that she already knew the story had Hawke laughing hard enough that tears squeezed from her eyes.

Fenris watched her most among them all. He did not mean to at first, as if what he meant to do had a bearing on anything tonight, but even after realizing he did so he made no effort to tear his gaze away. Her eyes were alight with memory and laughter, her mouth turned up in an easy smile when she was not speaking; the braid of her hair was loose over her shoulder and shining in the firelight, and when she caught his eye her smile grew brighter, and her eyes darker, and there was a word in them he could not read.

He knew what he wanted – and he did not know what to make of it. It was easy to call her a woman in moments like this, when her long hands lifted with her voice and sketched a story in the air; and then there were other times, other memories, other _faces _she wore that put the lie to the woman and painted her the creature she was. In a moment she could smile and dip her head and dance with a faceless nobleman – in another her eyes grew black, and her teeth sharpened, and on her chin there smeared a heavy drop of blood. He could not take the one without the other. He did not—

He did not _want _the one without the other.

Merrill departed first near five, her book under her arm; Bethany and Anders followed soon after, their heads bent together in close conversation made easier by drink. Fenris barely noticed their departure, grappling as he was this sudden, unwelcome realization, and did not realize he and Hawke were the only ones left in the library until he felt the weight of her stare on his face.

"What is it?" he asked, his voice rougher than he meant it, but instead of answering Hawke stood and crossed to the piano, placing her half-empty glass of wine atop it with a wholly unnecessary flourish. Her fingers danced down the keys without direction, pulling a note here and there from the instrument as she wished.

Without preamble, she said, "I am inebriated."

"So I see," Fenris said slowly, lowering his own glass to the little oak table set before the sofa. She played something like a scale, then splayed her fingers on the keys.

"It doesn't happen often. I tend to say things I shouldn't."

"What things?"

Her eyes cut to his as they had earlier, hot and dark and without artifice. His mouth went dry between one breath and the next, and in another he was on his feet without knowing he had risen, across the room without knowing he had begun to move. Hawke watched him come, her eyes lidded against the waning firelight and the glint of his tattoos; when he reached the bench where she sat she looked again to her hands, spreading her fingers in slow chords without purpose. "And here you are," she said to the open music-book before her, the black notes scratched across the measures blurred with drink. "I was convinced you'd be off like someone had set fire to your shoes."

"You underestimate me," he said, resting one hand on the dark wood that marked the end of the highest keys, "and overestimate the importance of footwear."

Hawke laughed, low and quick, and rose to her feet. Her height surprised him, as it often did; this close her eyes were nearly of a level with his, firelight caught in their darkness like a physical thing, and when her eyebrow lifted in arch expectation Fenris stepped closer, close enough that he could feel the change of air around her, close enough that he could hear the soft inhalation she made at his movement. Her hand slipped an octave or two towards him, a skittering, uncertain motion that at once hurt his heart and sent it racing forward – her lips parted in question, or in invitation—

Fenris threw caution to the wind.

His hand fell over hers on the keys in total abandon, tangling with her fingers in a sudden discordant harmony that rippled across the crackling of the fire. His other hand slid around her waist, holding her tight, pulling her closer; her eyes widened and then half-closed, one hand coming up over his to hold it in place, to slide over the white band of silk still knotted around his wrist, and Fenris could not stop the quiet laugh that slipped from him. Hawke smiled to hear it, her fingers twining through his on the piano in a tuneless string of notes. He could see the stain of wine on her lips not unlike blood but with a sweeter tang, could feel her breath on his mouth; his grip tightened on her hand and he bent closer—

"Sister, I – _oh_! Oh – I'm – _so _sorry—"

They both jerked back like errant children, Fenris's face flaming, Hawke's hand fumbling into a graceless _plunk! _on the piano that would have been comic had they not been so disconcerted. Bethany stood in the doorway with her own cheeks coloring and her head turned politely back to the open hallway behind her, and Hawke dragged her fingers down her face before straightening her hair.

"Excuse me," Fenris said, stiff with embarrassment.

"Another time," she told him, her eyebrow raised over a resigned smile, and he could only nod in answer. She sailed past her sister with her head held high, as if she were the flag-bearer for an army; Fenris waited a moment longer, hoping to make his ignominious retreat in relative privacy, but as he began to edge towards the door Bethany stepped fully into the room.

"Wait, Fenris," she said, one hand outstretched towards him, and he had no choice but to stop. Bethany stepped towards him around the sofa, her brow furrowed; then she said, "Yes. All right. Fenris."

He straightened, unsettled, tense with anticipation and dread. "Yes?"

"I – well. This really belongs to my brother or my father, but as they're not here, I suppose I'll be the one to say it. Fenris," she said a third time, and this time her chin lifted in challenge, "I like you. I certainly like you more now than I did when I first met you. You make my sister laugh, which is more than anyone's done in a long time, and I know she trusts you with her back in battle, but—"

"Bethany—"

"No – listen. Here it is: Marian's all the family I've got left, and if you break her heart I'm going to be forced to turn your toes into icicles. I'd prefer that not to happen, if you understand my meaning."

A corner of his mouth quirked up, though his face was still hot with humiliation. "Understood."

"Well. Good. And now that I think of it," she added, the furrow returning, "you probably haven't got anyone to stand up for you. So if my sister breaks your heart, I – I don't know. I'll hold her down so you can pluck out an eyebrow, or something."

Fenris snorted, the haze of wine making the resultant image too vivid in his head. "That will not be necessary."

"Oh, good," Bethany said frankly. "She looks _terrible _when she's lopsided. She singed off an eyebrow once when she was learning to work with fire. It took three weeks before she could go out in public again."

He shook his head and followed Bethany to the door, but when she turned to head up the stairs he hesitated. She seemed to sense it and looked back at him, and he did not know if it was the drink or the fading rush of heat but the words escaped him all the same: "Your sister," he said, embarrassed, awkward, needing more someone to understand— "I am – uncertain."

"Lord, Fenris," said Bethany, laughing as she put a comforting hand on his arm, "so is she!"

It was little comfort – but it was comfort all the same, and as Fenris stepped out into the chilly London night he found himself thinking of a tuneless melody, of notes played without purpose, rising from the place where her fingers tangled with his.


	10. Burnt

**AN: **This chapter is rated a definite M. For puns. And reasons.

Also, the first part of this chapter is _entirely _Jade's fault for insisting I correct certain plot flaws. Then I figured that if I had to write a whole extra scene, by God, I was going to fit in every terrible pun I could. (Partly for revenge, but mostly because I love puns. Again, blame Jade.)

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Burnt

-.-.-

By the hunger of change and emotion,  
By the thirst of unbearable things,  
By despair, the twin-born of devotion,  
By the pleasure that winces and stings,

…

Thou shalt touch and make redder his roses  
With juice not of fruit nor of bud;  
When the sense in the spirit reposes,  
Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.

—_Dolores (Notre-Dame de Sept Douleurs), _Algernon Charles Swinburne

-.-.-

The door slammed open.

In half a heartbeat Fenris was away from the writing desk with his fingers crooked and his lyrium alight, panic and hot fear clawing up the back of this throat as every muscle in his body tensed for battle against—

"Hawke," he said hoarsely, and deflated like a torn sail.

"Fenris!" she exclaimed from where she stood in the doorway in her cap and vest, astonishment in her voice as if she had not expected to find him in his room, and then she grinned. "Goodness. You ought to have seen your face."

"You ought to have _knocked_."

"Why? Were you up to something prurient?"

Fenris lifted an eyebrow. "And if I were?"

Hawke's lips pursed at that as if to keep back a smile, but Fenris did not miss the way her eyes flicked to his half-made bed and back again. "That sounds like a challenge, signore. Isn't there some saying about imagination not living up to reality?"

"Then satisfy yourself with your imagination, Hawke." He had meant it to be a challenge; instead it came out as an invitation, and when Hawke began to grin he coughed and shifted to lean against the desk. "Did you have a purpose in coming here?"

"Oh, yes," she said, though there was a quirk to her brow that said he was not wholly absolved of his words. "Tell me: how do you feel about hunting down a rogue Apostolic?"

"What?"

"An Apostolic." She paused. "Actually, it might be a Catholic. My contact wasn't terribly clear."

"This is not one of Aveline's jobs."

"Not in the slightest. I have a friend who runs a little room-and-board establishment over by the docks. He gets the most interesting customers who always seem to have the most interesting problems, and when he sees odd jobs that need doing, sometimes he'll send them on to me." Hawke paused, as if struck by a thought. "Actually, you might have heard of him. Chanter's Boarding House?"

Fenris shook his head. "I have not."

"Well, it doesn't matter. He did a good deal more business in his original building anyway." She shrugged, then added, "So…rogue Apostolics?"

"Give me the details," Fenris said, though he was already reaching for his gauntlets and the Remington. By now Hawke knew what he would and would not fight for; by now he knew himself well enough to recognize his unwillingness to deny her what she asked.

She leaned one shoulder against the open doorframe. "I'm afraid I'm a bit sketchy on those. Here's what we do know: Three nights ago, a woman came into the boarding house and met one of the lodgers, a man who's been secretive and belligerent and generally untrustworthy ever since he arrived. She gave him a hefty stack of notes; he gave her a black box that had a glass rattle to it. Last night the man came in drunk and began talking to my friend, and over the course of the conversation it was discovered that the man dealt in poisons and toxins and had sold the woman enough arsenic to kill a herd of cattle. And that the woman he'd sold it to was a nun."

Fenris crossed his arms. "A…nun."

"He was quite certain on that part. And that she might or might not be planning to kill with it. And that she might or might not be Apostolic."

"And you…plan to simply wander the city until you find a nun, then ask her if she has recently purchased arsenic."

"Oh, ye of little faith," Hawke said, smiling, and she pulled a slip of white paper from her vest pocket. "I happen to have a _name._"

"And that name is…?"

"Petrice."

-.-.-

Varric had not known Petrice, but as Fenris had come to expect he'd had a friend who had a friend who did, and once Hawke had collected Merrill and Isabela from the pub the four of them set off into the night. A light, feathering rain had begun to fall in sporadic bursts, damp enough to have Fenris scowling, but there was a wild coldness to it that heralded lightning before the night was out, and when a particularly icy blast caught them on a narrow street Fenris saw Isabela turn her face up to the promising storm and smile. He himself had no such delusions; between Merrill and himself hunched against the weather as they were there was nothing left of them but the tips of their ears.

Thankfully, the address Varric had provided was not overly distant. The church – Anglican, as it turned out – was set beside a curve of the Thames, a tall grey-stoned cathedral rising from the banks in stark shadow behind the weak gas-lamps. Its workmanship was ornate if not original, the façade made of high arches and Corinthian pillars and a dozen solemn saints staring down at them in distant judgment.

Isabela gave a mock shiver as they drew near, throwing heavy drops of rain from the ends of her hair. "Oh, this will be _interesting. _Like one of Varric's stories: an Anglican, a pagan, and Fenris walk into a church."

"Everything's more interesting when you're along," Hawke said absently, and as they passed beneath the figure of a nearly-naked man pierced with an arrow she snapped her fingers. "Now I recognize this! This is Sebastian's church! It's been so long since I've been here I hardly remembered it."

Merrill looked up, blinking rainwater from her eyes. "It's a very stern-looking building, isn't it? I wish they'd picked hues with souls."

"I think it's more cheerful inside," Hawke told her as Isabela picked the lock. Fenris snorted at both her optimism and the situation – even under Danarius he had never broken into a _church_ – and Hawke grinned.

"You have no qualms about fighting in a church?" he asked, genuinely curious.

Hawke lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I commended my soul into better hands than mine a long time ago," she said. "Besides," she added as the lock clicked open, "I see very little that's Christian about poison." Fenris rolled his eyes as the door swung quietly open, and with only the slightest of hesitations at the threshold, she threw him another grin before striding forward into the church.

A grin that disappeared entirely when they stepped inside and they saw the body kneeling on the dais.

"Oh, God," Hawke said then, her voice ricocheting from the high ceiling in flat horror, "_Seamus._"

It was not a name that Fenris knew, but Hawke was already running down the center aisle with no heed to silence or safety. Fenris followed hard on her heels but she had too much of a start; she stumbled to a halt at the end of the pews with a queer half-sob as she pressed one hand to her mouth—

And on the dais, the kneeling man lifted his head and said, bewildered, "Hawke?"

For a moment the world froze. Then Hawke _exploded _into movement, flying up the three steps until she could yank the man to his feet. "You _ass_! I thought you were dead!"

"Dead? What?" The man – Seamus – put a hand on Hawke's shoulder to steady himself and glanced at Fenris where he stood stiffly in the aisle, clearly seeking both enlightenment and commiseration. Fenris, for some reason, found himself loath to give either and fingered the Remington at his side instead. "I only dropped my key. See?"

"What are you even doing here? Your father will be out of his mind with worry."

Seamus's mouth thinned as he looked back to Hawke, and Fenris recognized the light of conviction in his face. "I'm not going back. I came here tonight to say goodbye to Mother Elthina."

"Goodbye?"

"Yes." He drew himself up, his ridiculous rooster-tail hair flopping behind his ears. "I'm a socialist. I'm going with General Aristov to Manchuria."

Hawke stared. "You're—_what_?"

"I have to!" Seamus flung out an arm at the empty church around them, at the unseeing stone faces that returned his gaze impassively. "I can't—live here and pretend I'm happy about it. I can't walk into these empty buildings and pretend to have their faith. Not anymore. Karl Marx wrote about purpose; Aristov has agreed to allow me to look for it with him."

"You mean you're running away from your responsibility," Hawke said, and Fenris could not remember her voice ever being quite so cold before.

"They won't even notice I'm gone."

"You're your father's only heir, Seamus!" Hawke snapped. "His only family! I can't believe you'd just leave him alone like that – without a _word—_"

"Hawke," Seamus said, taking her shoulders in both hands to cut her off, "I'm begging you. Don't tell my father. I'll write him when I'm safe."

Fenris curled his lip and Hawke _flinched – _but before either of them could move, a new voice rang out behind them.

"_There_," said the woman where she stood at the back of the church, her arms crossed tightly over her habit. She was tall, taller than Hawke, and she wore no wimple; her hair was ash blonde and cropped short, and her eyes were heavy and lidded with both anger and satisfaction. "Now you see, Mother? If we do nothing, even the noblest of the flock will go astray."

The Mother Superior came in behind her, an older woman with a lined face and a rosary looped around one hand, and even from this distance Fenris could see the tension between the two of them. "Calm yourself, Petrice," the Mother Superior said, placing her hand on the younger woman's arm. "The Lord gave us free will for a reason."

"Not for _this_," Petrice said, jerking free.

Isabela let out a delighted laugh and dropped into the nearest pew, lacing her hands behind her head. "This is better than anything Varric's written in ages," she said, looking up at Fenris, then twisted to watch the pair of women striding down the aisle towards them. "I wonder if it's hard to throw a punch in a robe."

Then Hawke was at his elbow, her voice quiet and urgent. "Merrill, I think you'd better go find Sebastian. This looks like it might go badly."

"It's so exciting!" Merrill agreed, and with a cheerful smile she vanished into a white fluff of fog.

Petrice let out a strangled cry, blanching as Hawke swept an arm through the air to disperse what was left of Merrill. "Sister Petrice," she said evenly. "I was hoping to find you."

"Mother Elthina, _what _is going—" Seamus started behind them, but at Fenris's glare he subsided into baffled silence.

"Find a little patience," Elthina said, answering him anyway as she joined the rest of them at the first pew, "and I believe we will all discover the truth. What is the trouble here, child?"

"The sister has been accused of buying poison to kill a man. I've come here to speak with her about it."

"How _dare _you," Petrice snapped, swelling with rage until the air around her seemed to crackle. "To accuse me in the house of God – to accuse me before the Mother Superior–!"

"I am only looking for answers," Hawke said. "I don't intend to accuse anyone without proof."

Petrice scoffed. "Keep your perfidy for your own kind. I saw your friend – I _know _what you are. You speak with the tongue of the Prince of Lies, and you will _not _profane this holy ground a moment longer."

Hawke's mouth fell open and Fenris felt his hackles rise – but Elthina spoke first, and sharply. "Take care, Sister Petrice. Did Christ not eat with the righteous and the sinners alike?"

"And did He not also curse the fig tree that did not bear fruit?" She cut her eyes to Hawke, and there was a hatred in them as old as any curse. "It is right that the barren be removed to make way for the faithful."

"It's—_you!_" Seamus cried suddenly, and every eye went to him in surprise. He gestured at Petrice, his cheeks blotching with anger. "You're the one who's been at the docks shouting at the general's men. I heard you say it was a righteous man's duty to cast out the demons into the river."

"Petrice—" Elthina began, her eyes wide with dismay, but the sister was already stalking up the steps, already clenching her hands into fists at her side as she reached the young nobleman.

"There is too much at stake; the people of this city must be made to see the light. If I must – if you and your Russian demons _demand _it of me with your _ignorance_ – I will do so by force."

Hawke sucked in a breath and Fenris took a quick step forward – but the knife was already out, lifted, its razor's edge held too close to Seamus's neck. "Sister—" he started, gasping; she slid behind him, touching the blade to his skin, and he fell silent.

There was no chance to pull the Remington free; there was no chance for Hawke to move without risking Seamus's life. He did not even dare hazard a step closer, not with the knife so near, and though from the corner of his eye he saw Isabela reaching towards the dagger in her boot, he knew there would be little chance to take so difficult a shot without interruption. Outside Fenris heard the rumble of distant thunder, heard too the sudden rushing fall of the skies opening in earnest with the storm.

"Petrice," Hawke tried, though there was deep tension in her voice that she could not hide, "think about this. This is a viscount's son. An innocent man. You kill him here and he becomes a martyr. You make him as much a symbol as anyone ever persecuted for their faith."

"_Blasphemer_," Petrice said, and Seamus flinched as her grip tightened. "Get thee behind me, hellspawn."

Isabela made a sharp, insulted noise as Hawke paled, but Elthina rose then like the thunderclouds around them, black and terrible in her anger as she stepped forward. "The Lamb of God spoke of peace, child! Show me Christ in your actions here!"

She faltered only a moment; then she straightened, pointing her knife at the Mother Superior's heart, burning with the light of the fanatic. "He is Judge first! Better to cleanse the temple with holy fire; better martyrdom in faith than a life marked for the fires of Hell! This soul will go to God—his friends on the docks will follow—"

There was a sharp, discordant twang, and the knife snapped out of her hand to skitter away on the stone.

Seamus twisted free, white and trembling like a wind-torn flag as he stumbled down to the safety of Hawke's side. Petrice reached for him again but there was another twang – and deep in the polished oak railing by Petrice's hip stood quivering a white-fletched arrow.

"Murder," came the priest Sebastian's brogue from the balcony, "is a mortal sin."

Fenris did not turn with the others; as Petrice lifted her face to stare in fury at the man above her Fenris burst forward, caught her wrists in both hands, twisting himself behind her until he could force her to her knees. She staggered and fell, hard; Fenris could not find pity in his heart and mercy even less, as she straightened herself as best she could under Fenris's implacable strength, as she pursed her lips and spat at Hawke's feet.

Hawke did not respond, made no acknowledgement of the insult save a quick, rueful glance at Fenris. He scowled and refirmed his grip, insulted on her behalf, and he saw her eyes soften; then Sebastian spoke again and the moment was broken. "I had not expected to see you here, Lady Hawke."

"You know me," she said lightly. "I'm always putting my nose where it doesn't belong."

"Harlot," Petrice hissed, "corrupting a _priest—_" and then Fenris's gauntlets tightened around her wrists and she fell silent. Sebastian shook his head above them, nearly lost to the darkness between the rain's shadow and the black robes he wore; but even at this distance Fenris could see the long oiled curve of a bow in one hand, could read the sorrow in the man's eyes.

There was a sudden, quiet _poof_, and Merrill abruptly appeared at Sebastian's side in a burst of cloud, half a dozen white-fletched arrows held tightly to her chest. "Oh!" she said, nearly as startled as the man beside her, and then she smiled. "Here you are! Did you see? I found Sebastian."

"And not a moment too soon," Hawke told her, and an instant later Merrill vanished again, only to reappear beside Hawke in a clatter of dropped arrows.

"Oh dear," Merrill sighed, bending to pick them up again; as she and Hawke collected them Sebastian himself descended from the balcony via the more mundane stairway at the back of the church, and by the time he reached them Merrill had gathered the last one in her arms. "I'm – so sorry about that."

"Better a broken arrow than a wounded heart," Elthina said severely, and had Fenris not been so decidedly displeased with the entire situation the priest's flinch would have been comical. "I thought you made a vow of peace, Sebastian."

"I meant only to preserve it tonight, Mother Superior," he said, and Isabela smirked—

"Enough!" Fenris snapped, rough as an unworn stone, and he resisted the urge to shake the woman he still held. "What are we to do with this one?"

"Do with me what you will. My earthly body means nothing in the promise of my heavenly reward—"

"Oh, shut _up_," Isabela said, annoyance seeping from every syllable. "I was tired of you _ages_ ago."

Elthina turned to Hawke. "You said she has poison. I know there is a package in her cell; I should destroy it before it harms someone."

"Elthina, no," said Sebastian calmly. "Make her know the severity of her deeds. It must go to the police."

"Of course. Excuse me, Brother Vael; I'll wire the Yard. I trust you'll be able to hold her until they come, young man?"

Fenris hesitated; then he nodded, tight-lipped, and Elthina turned her back on the whole of them.

"Mother Superior," Petrice said then, and her voice was suddenly very small. "Mother Superior?"

But Elthina did not turn, and when the door closed behind her the fallen sister dropped her head and began to cry.

The police were there in short order – not Donnic and Aveline at this hour, but a few names and faces Fenris recognized as trustworthy – and when they had finished collecting statements and had at last guided a silent Petrice into the rain-soaked wagon, Fenris finally drew what felt like his first breath in hours. Seamus sat on the first pew, his head in his hands, his fingers still trembling; Merrill perched beside him, patting his shoulder, and she occasionally murmured "there, there," as if she was not quite certain what it meant. He could not see Isabela – presumably pilfering the coffers, he thought, and could not decide if the thought was uncharitable – and as he joined Hawke and Sebastian at the foot of the dais he did not miss the quick smile that flickered across her face.

"Sebastian," he said by way of greeting, and took the priest's hand when he offered it. "I did not know you used a bow."

"One of the better-kept secrets of the church," he said ruefully. "I meant to give up such ties to my old life when I took orders."

"As if our old lives are so easily forgotten," Hawke murmured, and Fenris saw that her eyes were distant. Then she shook herself free of her ghosts, returning to the present, and sighed. "I'm sorry about Petrice, Sebastian."

"As am I. I did not know her struggles ran so deep."

"And fervent."

"And fervent. To think a member of this church would stoop to outright murder and poison…"

"Oh—" said Hawke abruptly. "The poison. I've got to warn General Aristov. If Petrice could do this, I'm sure there are others."

"There is no need," said a deep, rough voice from the balcony. The timbre took a moment to place; then Fenris recognized the Russian soldier from the street, the one who'd watched them from the roofs and warned them of their watchers. "I will tell the general what has happened here, _beskrovnyy._"

"_Ashaad,_" gasped Seamus, and Hawke stepped forward – but the man waited for neither acknowledgement nor answer, and in a moment he had withdrawn from sight. They stood in silence for a minute that stretched out between them; then Hawke sighed as if to drive the air from her lungs and said, "I suppose that's that, then."

She looked – so _tired_, and without thinking Fenris said, "At least he has spared you the walk."

"Small favors," Hawke said, but the fatigue eased from her eyes as she smiled. "I don't even like the docks. There's nothing exciting in their crates."

"A magpie with questionable taste," he said, smiling himself, thinking of another conversation they'd once had about broken treasures, and shook his head. "Not everything is so easily repaired."

"No," Hawke agreed. "But some things are worth the effort."

There was something in her voice, something quick and uneven and too honest, something that caught his attention like brambles caught an errant foot. But whatever light had flashed in her words was gone again before he could pin it; she turned to Sebastian and tugged her cap to a jaunty angle. "Now, sir," she said, "you did hear about the gathering at the house next weekend, didn't you?"

Sebastian looked between them, clearly aware he had missed something but uncertain of how to broach the subject. "Yes," he said instead, apparently surrendering. "Your friends were kind enough to invite me."

"And you're coming?"

Sebastian hesitated. "I am not sure that would be wise."

"Ah-ha. He protests, but I can see the indecision in his eyes." Hawke leaned close to Fenris conspiratorially, brushing her shoulder against his. "Look, Fenris. The Vael is torn."

He snorted, amused despite himself, and as Hawke set about convincing a priest to attend a vampire's evening party, Fenris glanced behind them to the still-open doors at the far end of the cathedral. The rain still fell hard and fast, greying out all the world but this room to heavy, indistinct blurs; muffling the night under its steady falling sheets.

Then lightning flashed in the distance, hard and white as daylight, and in the moments before the thunder rippled over them in its long rolling rumble, Fenris saw Hawke's eyes turn with helpless longing to the place where the darkness broke.

-.-.-

"You _are_ aware, I suppose, that glowering from across the room will do very little to achieve your goals."

"Oh, yes, he is, Brother Vael. It's just that Fenris is also cripplingly insecure about his own feelings, which is why he's standing over here by the punch instead."

"Be silent," Fenris growled, and threw back what was left of his wine in two swallows.

Merrill stood on her toes and blew a gold plume of feather from her eyes. "Isabela poured vodka into the punch bowl, you know."

"I am aware," he said, and refilled his glass.

Sebastian leaned against the table beside him and crossed his arms. The immaculate silver of the punch bowl threw back his cassock in a long black streak amidst the shining, and Fenris snorted at the juxtaposition as he took a long sip from the spiked drink. Merrill pursed her lips and delicately sniffed the glass she held in her own gold-gloved hand; when it failed to offend, she shrugged and drank herself.

Fenris had not even wished to _come _to this party. It had been Merrill's idea, a sort of belated birthday celebration for Hawke and an early one for Anders the first week of November, and the whole group had been so damnably enthusiastic over the idea Fenris had had no will to decline – hence his presence now in Hawke's repurposed drawing room, in his dark wool waistcoat, white gloves on his hands and a tie at his throat.

And punch laced with vodka, he reminded himself, and took another sip.

"Whatever are you doing?"

Fenris glanced to the side in time to see Merrill look up from where she had bent over the candelabra in the center of the table.

"Nothing special," she said to Sebastian in answer, smiling, and gestured at the silver-bright mirror set behind the candles. "Just looking for my reflection."

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Oh, yes. Only one mirror's ever shown it to me, but I always look, just in case."

"What happened?"

Her eyes went distant, and something sad rose in her smile. "Oh—I broke it."

There was an old wound in that, something neither Fenris nor Sebastian could touch, and for several seconds the three of them stood quietly and watched the whirling dancers.

"Miss Hawke looks very well tonight," remarked Sebastian then, and Fenris was forced to confront that which he had been avoiding all evening. The music floating in from the open doors of the library was light and merry; and Hawke's face was light and merry as she turned in the arms of her partner. Seamus had hardly gone a day without visiting Hawke after the disaster of his visit to the Mother Superior, and even without hearing the words Fenris knew the viscount's son would be both politely respectful and sincerely besotted. Fenris had lost count of Hawke's partners this evening – though one of them had been the blonde Spaniard with the inked face now dancing with Isabela, his wicked smile a match to Isabela's white-and-brown velvet dress that dipped dangerously low both fore and stern.

A turn went a step too far and Hawke dropped the train of her charcoal-grey gown. Seamus smiled and helped her retrieve it, the slender, curling silver vines embroidered on her sheer silk overskirt catching the light with the motion, and Fenris looked away. He knew how it felt to rest his palm on Hawke's waist, to feel the weight of her fingers on his – and yet the sensation was as distant as a dream, a colored bit of light thrown by stained glass; who he was _now _was not who he had been, and to hold Hawke now as he had that first night that they had met would be a test of his composure – and, he suspected, of hers – that he was not prepared to attempt in public.

The Spaniard let out a whoop when the dance ended, then immediately returned to Isabela when the next quadrille began. Neither of them danced the right steps; Isabela's feet were moving in some strange Gypsy pattern that Fenris did not know, her heavy gold jewelry flashing at her ears and at her throat, and the Spaniard moved with her with the grace of water as if he were born to it. Hawke smiled at them both over her partner's shoulder before looking suddenly in Fenris's own direction. He watched her search him out, met her eyes for a brief, blistering second across the drawing room – and then she turned again to the viscount's son and Fenris looked away.

Hawke must have known it too; as unreserved as she'd been in Sebastian's church she had not once sought him out here; as easily as she'd brought him to her home she still had spoken no word of anything beyond a greeting.

Sebastian shook his head. "How very – cautious of you," he murmured, and when Merrill accepted his proffered hand he stepped away with a kind and sympathetic and worse, _knowing _smile that made Fenris reach for his glass again. This world was Hawke's, bright as it was, happy as it was; he had no place here. He was meant for shadows, for darker places, for the world where he was hunter and Hawke and her kind hunted. In _this _world of string quartets and dancing nobles and elegant tittering he had only one purpose: to serve.

Some truths never dimmed, no matter the masks he found for himself. In this half of the world where Hawke lived – he had no life at all.

He let his gaze unfocus in the glow of the many-armed candelabras illuminating the drawing room. Somewhere the Brother Vael bowed to Merrill on the floor; somewhere Isabela danced the wind with a blonde Spaniard. Anders stood close to a short, square woman with dark hair, laughing over a long vigil they had once kept together across the sea. Varric swung Bethany in a wide circle, her green gown flaring wide – and somewhere, in a gleaming blur of grey and silver Hawke bent her head to a viscount's words, and Fenris closed his eyes.

-.-.-

Fenris was not a man given to pacing.

Then again, before tonight he would have said he was neither a man given to jealousy, and yet here he was in Hawke's silent, darkened library, pacing, jealous, one hand in his hair and Italian invective on his tongue. Bethany had kept him company until the last guest had departed near two; then Anders had taken her away to his friend's house for a reunion of old friends, and Merrill had followed Varric and Isabela and the Spaniard to the Hanged Man for cards, and with Hawke upstairs Fenris had been left to his own choice – which it seemed meant wearing a furrow in the Persian rug and leading himself in fruitless circles.

He let out a short, sharp curse, and one of the hired servants clearing the floor of the drawing room threw him a wary glance. Fenris ignored him, ignored the good-natured bustle of Bodahn and his son among the commotion – this was too much – this was _intolerable_ – if he did not speak he would fracture like struck glass, unable to withstand the pressure of what coursed in his blood. He closed his eyes and Hawke smiled at him; he turned blindly to the window where the stars spattered across the cloak-dark sky and Hawke's mouth pressed gently against his wrist where it bled, against his cheek in something more than friendship, more than simple gratitude.

Fenris swore again and this time one of the servants jumped, toppling a chair with a bang that echoed through the empty rooms. Still Fenris barely noticed it – a decision was simmering in his heart, a line he had not thought to ever cross edging nearer. There was not even the painless emptiness of limbo; this was the hell of unfulfilled desire, of a _want _that blackened his heart and mind like a shadow thrown by too-bright torches, tempered only by the white-steel threads of genuine friendship that anchored him and choked him at once. He _had _to act, had to speak, had to find that impossible respite – he had to keep his tongue and his silence and not test the strength of cords so newly made between his heart and Hawke's.

In the world of silk and fur and jewels in which she lived he had no place. In the other world, where _he _lived and where he hunted the unliving of her kind he would have brought her only death and yet _now—_

He wanted her in _both._

He turned away from the stars and back towards them, seeing nothing. One way or another tonight he would _choose_, would end this unbearable turmoil, and if by morning he had sold his soul or saved it at least he would have _peace. _

A distant door slammed. Fenris looked up to find the servants gone, Bodahn vanished – Orana's voice murmured down the stairs too soft for words but clear in meaning as Hawke's lower register responded, and a moment later he heard the maid's light step on the stairs to the servants' quarters.

He chose.

Hawke's stairs were carpeted with Indian wool, and his feet made no sound as he took them two at a time. His courage swelled and waned like a tidewater's rhythm compressed from days to mere seconds, his steps flagging and then doubling in speed as he strode down the hall to Hawke's room. Her door was half-open; he knocked it with his fist and it swung wide against the wall. Fenris took two steps in and stopped.

Hawke stood in the center of her room, her head turned over her shoulder at the noise of his entrance. He caught an impression of damask wallpaper and dark-wooded crown molding behind the four-poster, of thick rugs and a blazing fireplace and a low table beside Hawke that held toiletries and a glass of wine – but the glimpse meant little in the light of the woman who stood beside them.

He had caught her dressing, her white shirtwaist not yet tucked into her pale grey trousers, her man's vest unbuttoned and open, her feet bare, her hair undone. He saw her swallow; then she said, quietly, "Fenris."

What words he'd planned flew from his head, blown away in the heat of his sudden anger, his sudden inexplicable _hurt. _"You are going to hunt."

She did not do him the discourtesy of lying; neither did she flinch from the fury he knew was on his face. "I am."

A heartbeat and he was moving – another and he was there, his hands lifted between them, his wrist that still bore the white silk handkerchief she'd bound there bared to the heat of the room. "And this – and _this_?"

"A gift given under duress," Hawke said, her voice even, and when she lifted her hand to touch it Fenris pulled his own away.

"Do you never tire of your assumptions?" he snarled, open-throated anger clawing up his spine. "Or are you so certain that your wisdom is infallible?"

"Of course not! All I can do is make my choices based on what I see!"

His lip curled as he moved closer, knowing he was crowding her, knowing too that she would give no ground despite it. "And what, _Hawke_, do you see?"

She lifted her chin. "Someone who acts only in the safety of shadows." Fenris sucked in a breath, stricken; she continued, her eyes flashing with anger, "Someone who is deathly afraid of the light."

He refused to let her see how her words had hit their mark. "And now you pretend _you _are the one offended."

"Aren't I? What else am I supposed to believe when one moment you—" she gestured wildly at the floor, at the piano somewhere below them, "—and then the next moment you ignore me entirely!"

"You made no more effort to speak to me!"

"It was _one night_! Friends of the family, neighbors – I've known Seamus Dumar since he was a _child, _Fenris!"

"Then you know him well enough to know this encouraged him."

"Encouraged him. Encouraged _what_? A boy with cow eyes and no sense of anything beyond his father's estate and his own half-formed politics?" She whirled in place, her hands raking through her hair; then she spun back to face him and it floated over her shoulders like a thundercloud. "I would have left him in a moment if you hadn't been a _coward._"

"_You_—!" He faltered, speechless with fury, _raging _at the patent unfairness of that sentiment. Hawke knew it, if the defiant lift of her chin was any indication, but she did not apologize and she did not recant, and when Fenris moved close enough to brush her chest with his own, her hand twisted into the collar of his shirt. "You see what you choose to see," he snarled, his chest _aching_, his fists clenched at his sides, wanting desperately to tear her from her certainty, to wound her the way she had wounded him. "Or has the dead thing that was your heart forgotten how to read the will of one still living?"

She recoiled, then surged forward, tearing the white band from his wrist before he realized she had moved. Too slowly he reached for it – Hawke flung it to the floor beside her and closed her hand around his wrist where it had once rested. "It's been a long time since I've been quite so angry," she said to the empty air over his shoulder, her voice quiet and unsteady and taut with temper. "A _very _long time, Fenris."

"Forgive me your stagnation," he sneered, and twisted his wrist to capture hers instead. She pushed him _hard_ with her other hand and he fell back – another three steps and his back was against the wall, his grip bunching the white shirtsleeves above her elbows and her hand fisted around his tie. The moment snagged, then stretched out between them like a strand of light – her face was hot with anger, her eyes bright, her lips parted as she tightened her grip, as she leaned closer.

"I won't wait forever," she told him then, her mouth so near his own he could feel the touch of each word, the twist of her lips as she shaped them, "for you to choose what you want."

He caught his breath – her eyes caught his—

Fenris kissed her.

Or perhaps Hawke kissed him, he didn't know – all that mattered was her mouth on his, opening under his, her hand slipping from his collar to his jaw to the place in his throat where his pulse raced, then to his hair at the nape of his neck where her fingers twisted in both anger and want. He pushed back, pushed _harder_ – one arm went around her waist and caught in her open vest; he shoved it up and off her shoulders, splayed his hand over her spine, crushing her against him until he could barely breathe. His other hand tangled in her hair and he pulled harder than he meant; Hawke bit his lip in answer and kissed him again, fierce enough to knock the back of his head against the wall.

Even that was not enough to deter him. Hawke's eyes were feral with challenge and dark with need, and he knew his own were little better as he inhaled against her cheek and felt her arms wrap around his neck. One of his legs was between hers; she pressed closer, pressed herself against him, slid her hand under his coat until he gathered his mind enough to shrug free of it. It fell and was forgotten.

He did not know whose breath was whose, which panted words were in English and which were not. Hawke's mouth was on his chin, his throat – he thought somehow he ought to fear that but there was no fear, only want – she opened her mouth and drew her tongue over the vein and relief whispered out between his teeth in a long thin sigh as he tightened his hands on her waist – this was where he belonged, where he _chose _to be – this was _right –_

Hawke abruptly crushed her hand against the base of his neck, not to choke him but to shove herself away. She staggered back, breathing hard, her lips reddened; Fenris braced one hand against the wall behind him and stared.

"Wait," she said, and her voice shook. "Wait. Fenris."

"Do not," he snapped, his voice rough and low and heated even to his own ears, "presume to tell me what I want again."

"Not you. Not you – _Fenris—_" She bent like a sapling caught in a storm, one hand clenched over her mouth. "You need to go. I'm so –_ hungry_ – I can't—"

Fool woman – and the greater fool he, for his choices, for his history, for every driving certainty in his heart that led his feet not _from _Hawke but _to _her, that led him to light the lyrium laid over his veins one curling vine at a time until the whole of his chest was aglow. He said, "Take it."

Her eyes were so wide he could see the blue-white light catch in them like stars; her tongue passed over her lips, and then she said, choking, "I won't."

Fenris scoffed, hurt again, angry again. "And now you refuse my offering. I should have expected this."

"I don't want an _offering," _Hawke snapped, and he thought that if she were not so furious she would weep. "I don't want what—_this _is—" her hands gestured helplessly in the air between them, "—to come from the part of me that doesn't live, the part that wants you only for the lyrium and I—_don't _want to be another one of your regrets in the morning."

His tie was already loose; he yanked his collar down with two fingers and stepped closer, close enough to see her breath catch in her throat, to see her eyes blacken as she stared at the elegant silver lines that marked the paths of the blood coursing under his skin. "Do you want this?"

"_Yes_," she breathed, a soft and sibilant hiss that slid through her teeth like silk. "I want that."

With one hand he flicked the top button free, and then the one below, until he was bare to the hollow of his throat and Hawke's eyes were fixed on him like the warbird of her namesake. Fenris let his fingers lift to touch her collarbone through her white shirt, then trailed them upward over her own throat, the pale, bared skin unmarked by any hand, until his thumb slid to one side of her jaw and his fingers to the other and he held her still. He said again, harder, "_Take it._"

She drew in a breath that touched his fingers – and her hesitation fell away like the weight of an unclasped cloak. Hawke kissed him first, strong and unyielding, and he felt it when her teeth began to sharpen; then one hand curled around the back of his neck, holding his head to one side as if he had not done this before, as if he had not spent hours – days – lifetimes so raw-stripped before another – but her other came around his back in something he could not name other than an embrace, and for that he had no frame of reference. Her closed lips slid downward from the base of his ear where the lyrium began, tracing its path with a kiss to the rise of his collarbone beneath it; then she moved upwards again, more slowly, and at last settled into place at the base of his neck where the indefinable qualities she sought were met. She held there a moment and Fenris closed his eyes, caught between breaths, caught between worlds and past and present and _future_—

She bit.

His hands clenched into her shirt involuntarily, tightening the fabric around her waist. It _hurt _– and with the hurt came terror, old and ugly and intimately familiar, because to flinch at this point meant only _more _pain and worse, displeasure, and if he failed the master now in something so _simple_ it would lead to nothing but agony_—_

"Fenris?"

Her mouth was still against his neck, her hand still on his shoulder – but there was concern in her voice and worry in her grip and Fenris forced himself to loosen his hands, to ease the wire-taut tendons that lined his throat. It was easy to be terrified; it was forever easier to be angry, and Fenris took refuge in that anger.

"Do you think I am fragile?" he snapped, and put one hand to the back of her head. "_Move!_"

She let out a short, sharp noise of irritation – and then she closed her lips over the place where his throat bled and she swallowed. Her whole body shuddered in his arms and there was a perverse victory in that – and there was victory too in the quiet, wanting, wanton gasp that came with it. She might be the one who fed, but he was no thrall beneath her.

He let himself be lost in that conquest, let time be measured not in minutes but in the rhythmic spark-sharp stings at the base of his neck, in the quick presses of her tongue to his skin where it was marked. Her hips rolled against his once, and then a second time – he fisted his hand again in her shirt, thinking the motion an accident due only to the implicit loss of control a surrender like his presented – and then for a third time she rocked against him, and this time Fenris heard the low breathless laugh beneath it.

Fine. If she sought that sort of battle, he was more than happy to oblige. Her hair spilled over his hand like dark ink; he twisted his fingers into it and _pulled_ until her mouth came free, darkened with his blood, until he could see the blackness of her eyes in the firelight. "No quarter," he told her, not sure whether he meant it more for her or for himself as he slanted his mouth over hers. It took her a moment to respond, dazed with bloodlust as she was; then her mouth was working against his, fierce and rough, filling him with the taste of copper and iron. Her hands were at his throat, not for the blood but for the buttons, and as she fumbled her way through them he guided her backwards in the vague direction of her bed, blind but for her hands between them and the heat of her lips and her tongue on his own.

The backs of her knees hit the bed, but she found the last buttons of his vest and his shirt beneath it before he could press her further, and in one quick motion she slid her hands under them both to lay him bare from the waist up. In another world he would have paused, uncertain and uncomfortable with her scrutiny; in another world he would have flushed with shame and turned away until she found soft words of reassurance. But this was here and this was _Hawke_, his blood in her mouth and her hands on his chest, three months and more of tight-leashed desire unwinding all at once, and there was no hesitation in him as he pushed her back onto the bed.

He meant to follow after but Hawke had taken his words to heart; she grasped the waist of his trousers and yanked him down beside her, and before he could recover she had slung a leg over his waist and bent her head again to his neck. Fenris gasped himself, staring past her at the burgundy canopy over her bed, lit in rolling waves of blue-white light as his markings began to flare with how strongly Hawke pulled. He closed his eyes, breathing hard, and Hawke laughed again – that was impetus enough, and Fenris gripped her shoulders and flung her from him.

She landed on her side, blood smeared over her chin. It seemed a shame to let her challenge go unanswered; Fenris echoed her own strategy, pinning her with his weight to the scarlet bedcovers. Hawke grinned as his hands went to the hem of her shirt, as he shoved it upwards and over her lifted arms without bothering with such a petty thing as buttons. The shirt dropped somewhere behind him as Fenris let his mouth curl up in the ruthless smile of a wolf sensing prey, and Hawke lifted an eyebrow.

He splayed his fingers over her bare stomach, marveling at the dark roughness of his calluses in comparison with the whiteness of skin that had not seen the sunlight in decades. Her waist was narrow, her shape slight, but—

She was beautiful.

"I have been thinking of you," he said then, sliding his hand upwards, feeling the breath catch under her ribs at the hoarseness of his voice, letting his palm drag over her bare breast before settling over her slender neck. He bent and kissed her, ignoring the bite she gave him for his trouble, and said against her mouth, "In fact, I have been able to think of little else."

"Whereas I, on the other hand, have been eminently more preoccupied with potential wars and diplomatic crises and – _ah—_"

Fenris laughed against her mouth, his fingertips drawing over her breast again, and did not try to check the growl that slipped loose when Hawke threw her head back on the bed and bared to him her throat. He would not bleed her like she had him – and even as he leaned forward a drop or two of his own blood fell from his neck to the white skin of her stomach – but he _would _let his teeth leave a mark his words could not. Hawke let out a high, fluting sigh and dug her fingernails into his back; Fenris bit her again and she cried out, throwing one arm around his neck to hold him in place.

He rocked against her once, helplessly, undone more swiftly than he had expected by the openness of her desperation – and desire. Somehow he managed to free himself from his trousers and underclothes without freeing himself from Hawke; she came with him when he rolled them both again, her hand dropping between them to work at the fastenings of her own trousers. But one instinct was stronger than the other and her mouth fell over the still-bleeding place in his throat first, and despite his eagerness Fenris found himself tipping his head in bone-deep habit to give her better access.

Several seconds slid by before he was enough aware again to help her with her clothing himself, but when he did Hawke let him without pulling back, kicking the light grey fabric of her trousers away the moment she could. Her attention was split, caught as she was between two immediate needs; Fenris had no such troubles, and in one easy bunching of muscles he was on his knees on Hawke's bed, Hawke's naked legs wrapped around his waist, Hawke's mouth on his mouth, his hands in Hawke's hair. The lyrium was a storm of lightning, flickering wildly and without direction, and Hawke's fingernails dragged down the lines of it that ran alongside his spine to send little frissons of light rippling over his ribs.

"Beautiful," she said in wonder, and then she groaned as Fenris drove his hips into hers at last.

They were not gentle. This was not a thing of giving but of _taking_, of pulling every wound and second of pain from the body of the other. There was no soft surrender, no offering of pleasure for the sake of it – instead they took what they wished and more when they could, demanding satisfaction while yielding nothing, fast and rough and hot until the room was filled with quick, desperate breaths and the fire brought sweat to their shoulders.

Hawke crushed her blunted teeth over the place where she had bitten him, squeezing blood and lyrium from the wound with pressure alone, holding him in place as a dog held another in submission; Fenris yanked himself free and scraped red marks down the white skin of her back. He had known other lovers in the past, quick things that had flared and faded with flight – _this_ was too hard for love but too hot to die so quickly, a slow-burning smolder in the dead and fallen leaves that grew and swelled in silence until at once the whole wood was wreathed in flame.

He lunged upward on his knees and Hawke clenched her teeth against a cry, throwing her forehead into his unbloodied shoulder. Her other hand slipped across his neck without purchase, slick with the sweat and the blood that smeared over his bare chest with her fingers. The muscles in his arms ached with effort, with the fight Hawke tore from him for dominance; she bowed forward and back against him, pushing, pulling, curving her spine under his palms, panting deep enough that he could feel the quick spreading of her ribs. The end was coiling fire-hot and tight in the pit of his stomach and he clamped down on it without mercy; if this was a war he would not cede victory until she was done, boneless, spent and pliant in his arms.

Her rhythm stuttered, then failed altogether. Fenris laughed and cursed in the same breath, trying to catch her, trying to _match _her, but Hawke was a twist of flame in his hands, her head thrown back, her fingers knotted in his hair, pulling him close to something bright and hot as magnesium burning. Every muscle in her body seized at once around him – and he was lost, shout buried in Hawke's neck in defeat and triumph both.

_—he _belonged_ here, on his knees, his master's hand on his throat and his master's tongue on his pulse—_

The next few moments were gone in a black, heavy rush—

—_his master smiling, his master stroking his hair and the back of his neck, gently, because this was what he had been made for and what he was _meant _for, because it pleased the master to have a tool so eager to meet its purpose—_

The world's sounds returned first, one by one: his quick gasps of air, and Hawke's, and then the quieter, steadier crackling of the fire. His skin was slick with sweat and stained with his own blood, his neck sore and quickly beginning to swell. Hawke was watching him, he realized, the blackness of her eyes beginning to recede even as he looked; she gave him a tired, hesitant grin and dropped her forehead to rest against his good shoulder. He let her, let his hands settle at the curve of her waist, let his mind shy away from the doubt and dread and old hatred that were already beginning to rise in the oldest places of his mind.

They stayed that way for a long time, long enough that the sweat began to dry on his bare back, long enough that his knees began to ache where they were bent. Hawke slid free soon after, easing herself away from him as if she too twinged with unexpected pangs, and as he moved carefully to sit on the edge of her rumpled red bedcovers she headed for the washstand beside the night-darkened window.

Fenris did not know the hour, nor how close the time was to dawn. The stars were still bright, the moon still high; Hawke stood like a ghost in its light, pale and slim, her edges fraying into grey mist as she drew a damp cloth over her skin. Her mouth she saved for last, and when she was finished she stared at the redness staining the fabric as if it were not a thing of reality. Fenris watched her without speaking, without moving, and soon enough she shook her head and put the cloth away, soaking a fresh one in clean water and bringing it back to him.

He cleaned himself briskly and efficiently, and when he was finished he returned the dirtied cloth to her. She met his eyes and there was something impenetrable in her face that stilled him; after a moment she bent and plucked something from the floor at the foot of the bed, and when she straightened Fenris saw that she held the white handkerchief that had once held cartridges meant to kill her. He swallowed but did not move as she folded it around the reddened stains that were already there to a cleaner place, did not protest as she put it to his neck, wiping away what blood remained that he had missed.

Fenris closed his eyes. The skin _was _swollen. He could feel the heat of it against the cool cloth, could count the beats of his heart with each throbbing pulse. The wound still bled too freely – a legacy of the lyrium, and of the purpose for which Danarius had made him – and the handkerchief was stained wholly red before the flow began to ebb. Throughout her work Hawke's hands were light, careful, as if now that she had taken him she did not wish to hurt him, as if she did not know how often he had bled like this before and managed his hurt on his own. Still, the attention was – not unwelcome, and not unpleasant, and when at last she drew away the handkerchief and pressed her lips gently to the place where she had marked him Fenris let his head, just for an instant, lean against hers.

It was not much but Hawke smiled all the same, and smoothed her hand over the mark, and touched her forehead to his in something like apology. She did not speak and neither did Fenris, uncertain if he could find words for his unrest. Hawke seemed to sense it; her gaze lowered as she pulled away, though her fingers slid gently from his shoulder to his half-curled hand before she stood and crossed to the basin again. The red-stained cloth dipped into it once, twice, until the water Hawke wrung from it fell clear; but his blood had a deeper hold than she had clearly expected, and when the crimson color showed no sign of relenting she closed her fist around the handkerchief and dropped it to her side.

"Stay," she said without looking at him, and her mouth quirked. "The night is cold."

Fenris hesitated. Hawke lifted an eyebrow and turned to rummage in a root oak bureau, and a moment later a pair of plain cotton pyjama trousers struck him in the face. "Stay," she said again, less tenderly, and dragged a man's nightshirt over her own head. "Unless your fears hold you so tightly you don't have the strength to thwart them."

He curled his lip and stood, dressing himself in his borrowed clothes with short, tense motions. "_Sarai la mia morte._"

"Flatterer."

Her sarcasm was sharp enough to cut and Fenris snorted. Hawke threw him a hard-edged smile and crossed the room on bare feet to the window, pulling the drapes closed against the threat of sunlight, and on her way back to the bed her knee knocked against the little low table by which she had been dressing. The half-empty wine glass on it shivered at the motion and Hawke reached down reflexively to catch it; it fell all the same and shattered with a spray of wine across the wooden surface. Hawke laughed without mirth, and instead of returning she glanced to the fireplace and opened her hand until the handkerchief spread over her palm like a spill of wine itself.

"Leave it," Fenris said when she looked to throw it in the fire, joining her at the hearth. Hawke handed the handkerchief to him wordlessly; the silk was thin as tissue and already beginning to dry, and Fenris turned it between his fingers before the fireplace as Hawke moved away from him towards the bed.

"You're still going to leave," she said flatly, and the bedcovers rustled as she sat.

Fenris braced an arm on the mantle, the stained handkerchief mocking him where it dangled from his grasp. It was – _hard _to speak, harder still to find the words he needed to explain to her the depths of his broken history, but at last he said, "This was a mistake."

She let out a long, hissing breath through her teeth. "I'm shocked," she said, and though she spoke lightly Fenris heard the hurt beneath it. "You didn't even wait until morning."

He turned to look at her, bitter frustration welling in his throat. "Would you prefer me to hold the words until then?"

"I'd prefer you to stop running every time you're faced with emotion other than rage, frankly."

"That is not true."

"No? What of the night at Jethann's? What of when Bethany had her nightmare? What of _now_?" Her voice was even; her hands were clenched on her knees. "You told me not to presume. Fine. _This –_ is what I _see_. This is what you show me _every time_ something manages to break through the stone walls you've built so neatly around yourself."

His neck throbbed with pain, with heat. "This is too much. I – cannot do this."

"That's a coward's excuse!"

"You know _nothing_ of cowardice!" Fenris snarled through clenched teeth, and gestured roughly at his own neck. "Every memory I have of this is twisted. Every prick of pain brings flashes of his face. I rise in the morning to find his marks of ownership in my flesh and I sleep to dream of serving him. There is no respite for me anywhere on this earth – I am branded, inside and out, and you are a _fool_ to think of caring for a man who cannot even remember which set of teeth to fear!"

He cut himself off, panting, wishing he had not spoken and at the same time hoping Hawke had understood. She had risen at some point, the nightshirt fluttering around her knees; now she came to him where he stood before the fire, her brow creased and her lips pressed together. She stopped before him, close enough that he could feel her heat and yet not quite close enough to touch. Her mouth opened, hesitated, closed again; then all at once she reached up and cupped his face in her hands, and she kissed him.

This kiss had nothing of the violence of their earlier embraces. This was softer, and sadder, gentle enough to hurt him, and when it was over Hawke dropped her hands between them. "I'm sorry," she murmured, and then in a faint, mocking echo of one of their earliest meetings she added, "I did not mean to hurt you."

"You did," Fenris said ruefully, his anger easing into something softer. "As did I."

She closed her eyes, the furrow of her brow deeper now with pain, and opened them again with a sigh. "We're all fools in some way, Fenris. Perhaps you're just fortunate I haven't got a heart to break."

A soft snort of laughter slipped free before he could stop it. "_Un_fortunate, perhaps."

"You do have a knack for finding yourself in the precise situation you dread the most."

"And you to thank for it."

A corner of her mouth lifted in a wry smile, and when she took his hand Fenris allowed her to lead him to the bed, extinguishing the stubby candles as they went.

-.-.-

He woke just after noon.

The room was dim despite the hour, Hawke's drapes well-thick and heavy, and several minutes passed before he could muster the will to slide free of her sheets – and her warmth. Hawke was still asleep, her back to him and her black hair spread over her pillow; he dressed quickly and in silence, glancing at the mirror set above the bureau only once to find the marks on his neck well on their way to healing.

Hawke stirred long enough to knot the reddened handkerchief over his wrist again, though there was no bleeding wound left in his skin for it to bind. "Go," she said quietly, her voice rough and slurred with sleep, but her tired smile was clear as she touched the knot. "Just remember, sooner or later – come back."

Come back? He was penniless, homeless, nameless, _worthless_ – he had nothing to give her but hatred and painful memories, and of those she had too many already. "I will," he answered in hope rather than promise, his own fingers brushing over the place hers had been, and he was gone.

* * *

**Art #2**, by frikadeller: tinyurl dot com /bh3aqv9


	11. Several Conversations Take Place

**AN: **Oh, Fenris. Why you gotta make it so hard for yourself.**  
**

Also, I forgot to mention it on the last chapter, but special thanks go to phdfan for her pinch-hit beta job.

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**Chapter Eleven**

Several Conversations Take Place

-.-.-

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.  
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent  
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!

_—I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day, _Gerard Manley Hopkins

.

Heart, we will forget him!  
You and I, to-night!  
You may forget the warmth he gave,  
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me,  
That I my thoughts may dim;  
Haste! lest while you're lagging,  
I may remember him!

—_Emily Dickinson_

-.-.-

It was not, Hawke thought, as if she had never lost lovers before. There had been the tall blonde boy in Texas who'd gone away to the war and died, and Liam who'd only been after her money in the end, and a _charming _ginger-haired knight passing through London who'd had some slight acquaintance with her cousin; but this was the first time in her long memory in which she wished at once both to have the man back and to _kill _him.

Worse, it was not as though she did not understand his reasons. She had seen his eyes when he'd offered her his throat, defiance a thin veneer over fear; and she had seen, too, the old impotent anger that bruised what contentment he had been able to steal as he had touched her. Revulsion was too weak a word, unliving thing that she was – and _damn _Fenris all the same for offering her such hope and then tearing it away before she could grasp it. She'd always thought a dead heart could not be broken; it could, however, apparently be quite mangled, and in the course of the next few days Hawke did what she could to repair it without alerting the household to her sudden dejection. Bethany, though, knew her too well, and at the end of the week she cornered her in her room and extracted the whole sordid story.

"That," said Bethany when she was finished, irritation coloring her tone, "was _precisely_ the opposite of what I told him to do. Come with me – I have toes to freeze off."

Hawke laughed despite herself. "No need, although the sentiment is appreciated. It's not—" she paused, searching for the word, "—_over_, I don't think. It's just…stalled."

"For how long?"

"How long has it been since you and Anders were last _amoreux_?"

"Don't be coarse."

"Don't be dense. I've got some time before we catch up to the two of you."

Bethany pursed her lips, but her eyes were thoughtful. "That does explain why you kept going to mist every time Fenris spoke last night."

"He kept surprising me! It was the first time we'd fought together since – well. Anyway, each time he opened his mouth I just heard him saying _mistake _instead."

"You'll have to get hold of yourself if you're going to keep fighting with him, sister. Isabela and Varric are already suspicious."

Hawke snorted. "I'm sure Isabela and a bottle of wine have already coaxed the whole damn thing from Fenris. The woman's got a nose for turpitude like a bloodhound."

"You're laughing, but least she's on your side. I heard her say something to him last night about longing glances doing very little but making the company itchy."

"What, ah…did Fenris tell her?"

"The usual," Bethany said, rolling her eyes, and added in a passable if mocking imitation of Fenris's voice, "Leave it be. Leave it alone. Leave _me_alone."

"Well, he's certainly sure of that part," Hawke muttered more bitterly than she meant, and Bethany's hand landed gently on her knee. "Never mind," she added, forcing her tone to lighten as she covered her sister's hand with her own. "I'm sure once everyone's run him to ground on the subject he'll be more than eager to change his mind."

She had meant it as a joke, but over the next few weeks Hawke did in fact catch nearly every one of their companions in discussion with Fenris about their erstwhile liaison. Even Merrill seemed to sense the strain; Hawke came upon her asking Fenris if he'd slammed his fingers in a door, and it was only her quick removal of Merrill from the immediate vicinity that saved her from a stake to the heart.

Neither was it only Fenris who suffered. Every gathering in her library became a live minefield of innuendo and poorly-hidden interest; every visit to the Hanged Man was fraught with awkward pauses and Isabela elbowing her every time Hawke's eyes met Fenris's over their cards. Even Anders and Bethany had broken themselves off more than once, shamefaced, as Hawke came unexpectedly into the drawing room.

Worse, she could not even deny them their interest. Nosy as they were Hawke knew it was rooted in concern, even on Isabela's part, and she knew too that if it had been another in the group so pained she would have been right there with her friends to remedy it. Aveline and Donnic were living proof of that.

In truth, the only ones who did _not _discuss that night were Hawke and Fenris themselves. She tried only once to broach the subject as November turned colder, after their sixth successive night of fighting together without saying more than ten words apiece. It had gone well at first – she'd even managed to wheedle out of him an entire civil conversation about apples – but the moment she'd brought up _that night _he'd gone silent as a tomb, his eyebrows pinching together tighter than a drumskin before he'd turned to look out the window. Hawke did not know if he was more unwilling or _incapable _of speaking of it; but either way it seemed she was not to gain satisfaction from him on the subject for some time.

It would be easier, Hawke thought, if she did not care for him so deeply.

It was not enough to be called love – to _that _danger at least she had not yet succumbed – but there was a marked preference for his company that she could not quite explain, even to herself. Fenris was not a kind man, she reasoned, when reason was needed to dampen flighty emotion, and he was not a gentle one – and yet when she had awoken in a dim cave behind a waterfall, her head in his lap and his wrist at her mouth, he had been kind. He had been gentle. Fenris did not show his emotions easily, shut up as they were behind his careful walls; and when he had kissed her he had let her see them clearly, the rage and the hate and the desire and the _warmth _that underpinned it all, the uncertain unfurling care that was near cousin to affection. He was not a man given to generosity; and yet when she asked he gave, let her strip him of his defenses, let her sink her teeth into his throat and take until she was satisfied.

But _oh_, greedy, selfish thing she was, Hawke wanted more.

Neither was it the great secrets she so longed for, the truths of his slavery and his lyrium and his suffering that staggered in their enormity – rather, her attentions had snagged on the small things, the insignificant things, caught wholly and unexpectedly as a nightswimming fish caught the barbs of the hidden hook. They were not even things she could discuss with any rationality: the way he hunched against the weather as if it had offended him personally; his habit of checking his left boot where the clasp was broken; the way the timbre of his voice changed when he spoke to her.

And that damned smile. That smile was rare, and his laugh was rarer, and when she won either of them from him it was enough to warm her for hours. Hawke wanted to see them more, see them _often_, wanted to know what made him laugh and then be the one to do it when the doing was needed. But Fenris smiled little these days, and did not laugh at all, and Hawke knew that there was little she could do to remedy that when she herself had been one of the causes.

So be it. She did not have the nature to brood as he did; instead she occupied herself with other things, with Aveline's ongoing investigations and Varric's books in need of balancing and Isabela's entrepreneurial enterprises of dubious legality. It was easier to let time slip by her that way, easier too to let the wound of rejection scar over without salting it with hope. And she _did _hope despite herself, when she turned too quickly and discovered Fenris's gaze still on her face, or when she found her back against his in a sea of blade and flame and he lingered a moment too long after the battle was over. They were little things, _insignificant _things – and because she could not resign herself so easily, she hoped.

He still wore her handkerchief, after all.

-.-.-

The weather turned colder, and with the cold came a remarkable reduction in the city's nocturnal allotment of malfeasance. The nightly assignments came thinner and thinner until the season's first hard frost, and after that they petered out entirely, thus forcing Hawke to find other occupations for her evenings.

Some nights, she hunted; more often she went to Jethann and Serendipity when they could spare themselves. Fenris had not offered his blood again after that night, and Hawke had not asked, and when at last the precious surfeit of lyrium had worked out of her veins she wrote the Rose without complaint. He had given her the gift of it twice now; she could not begrudge him his doubt. Nor could she begrudge him the sudden clumsiness of their friendship, no matter how dearly she sometimes wished to take him by the shoulders and shake him until his teeth rattled. That too was her own doing as much as his, as little as she cared to admit it, and like all wounds this would take time to scar over.

But time passed, and bruises healed, and when Fenris appeared at her doorway one evening to return a book she'd lent him, it was nearly without hesitation that she invited him in to choose a new one. He did, and – surprising them both, she thought – he _stayed_, and read three chapters in companionable silence before Bethany wandered downstairs for tea. Two days later he returned, and stayed again when she offered, and as November at last gave way to December and his visits grew more regular they found themselves if not reconciled, at least nearer to friendship than they had been.

It was on one of these nights the first week of December that the knock pounded hard on the door.

The noise was loud enough to echo through the library. Fenris's head came up sharply, startled; Hawke met his look, and without a word they were both on their feet and hurrying through the hallway to the door. Aveline stood framed by the open doorway, impatience on her face and her slender sword at her hip as she spoke to Orana, and when Hawke and Fenris came into sight she beckoned to them both.

"Good, you're both here. Come on – something's happening at the docks, and there aren't enough of Donnic's men around this time of night to keep the peace if this thing turns sour."

"What's happened?" Hawke asked, reaching for the long heavy coat Orana already offered. Her ecru lace tea-dress was little suited to battle, but there was no time to change in the light of Aveline's urgency, and as Fenris checked the chamber of his revolver, she permitted herself to hope that at least tonight the laundry would be free of blood.

"Something with those Russian socialists in the docks, we don't know what. They've been quiet as we could have hoped as long as they've been here, but all of a sudden tonight they've got every light in the borough on and every man of theirs in the streets. And our informant says she saw them carrying guns."

"Your informant?" Fenris asked, closing the chamber with a _click _as Orana handed them both heavy scarves.

A woman's voice cut through the air from the street. "Would you _hurry_?" snapped Isabela from the cab waiting at the curb, the bandanna over her hair catching the light from the gas-lamps as she leaned her head out the window. "It's colder than a witch's tit out here."

Aveline sighed, but gestured behind her as Hawke and Fenris stepped out into the frigid night. "Our informant," she said. "And the only one in the books who has to be explicitly contracted not to start a war while on the job."

"You can't blame me if they refuse to lock up their old valuable books and things," Isabela said with some asperity. "It's like they're practically _inviting _me to have a look."

"I can, and they're not. Budge up."

"Prig," Isabela muttered, but made room. The three of them crammed themselves in and Aveline called to the driver, and a moment later they were rolling off into the darkened London streets. It took less than twenty minutes to reach the docks with the roads near empty for the evening, and by the time they made the final turn around the park Hawke could feel the tenseness of anticipation crackling in the air.

"At least it isn't raining," she murmured, more to break that tension than anything else, and from the corner of her eye she saw Fenris smirk.

They heard the commotion before they saw it: hundreds of voices, all raised, all calling orders or acknowledging them, not yet lifted in the noisy cacophony of a true riot but loud and growing louder. Yellow light spilled down from the buildings around the docks, candles and electric lamps alike forcing back the night. Here and there Hawke heard English mixed with the Russian, and as the cab drew closer she saw a handful of Donnic's men from Scotland Yard spread in a strained line at the edge of the crowd. One of them pointed; Hawke followed his gesture to see a tall, broad-shouldered Russian in a double-breasted overcoat place a black and shining rifle into a small crate before levering the lid into place over it.

"He's going to get himself killed," Hawke said as the man who'd pointed began to argue with the uniformed Russian soldier nearest him, and Aveline swore.

"Stop here," she snapped to the driver, and before the carriage had begun to slow she was already out the door, hopping a few steps to keep from falling before making her way to Donnic's men. One of them cried, startled, "Mrs. Hendyr!" and another saluted before remembering himself, and Hawke shook her head as Aveline began to sort them through.

Isabela slid to Aveline's empty seat and peered out the window at the organized chaos. "It certainly _looks _busy enough."

"But calm," Fenris added from where he leaned around Hawke. "They move with purpose."

"And what looks like all their worldly possessions," Hawke said, too conscious of his heat at her shoulder, of his arm where it touched her back. "Where on earth do they get so many crates?"

"I'm sure there's some emporium buried somewhere where the proprietor has nothing better to do with his time."

"Fine Crates for the Discerning Traveler. I can practically see the leaflets now."

"Look," Fenris said then, cutting across their nonsense with a nod. Hawke glanced where he pointed; and then her amusement was gone entirely, because in the silent eye of the seething storm around him, a head again taller than even his tallest lieutenant, stood the general Aristov. His head swung left and then right, an ox surveying its field – and then, as if he had sensed his audience, his eyes settled squarely on Hawke's face.

"That's torn it," said Hawke, and, ignoring Isabela's noise of protest, she flung open the door and stepped out.

The general watched her approach, impassive as a mountain and as immovable. Hawke heard the thump of footsteps on the street behind her as both Isabela and Fenris followed her from the cab, but she did not turn back and they neither of them tried to stop her. The rest of the general's men swept around them like a sea, paying little attention to the interlopers as they hefted crates and bags and boxes onto their shoulders and made their way to the harbor, carrying Hawke before the Aristov as if she'd been caught in a riptide instead of a company of men preparing for a journey.

"General," she said in greeting. "It seems you're leaving us at last."

His eyes went to the harbor where his men tramped across a steam-driven sea vessel, clearly of Russian make, and he inclined his head. "It seems our strength is needed elsewhere. We sail with the tide."

"Bound for glory on distant shores?"

"No glory," the general said curtly, his voice a rumble of thunder. "We serve where there is purpose."

Alistair _had _said— "And there is purpose in Manchuria."

Aristov glanced at her, his eyebrows lifting. "You say a great deal for one who does better to hide in silence."

"Would you prefer chicanery?"

"Honesty is refreshing, especially in this city." He paused a moment to deliver a set of rapid-fire instructions in Russian to one of his lieutenants, then turned again to Hawke. "Especially for one who champions such causes as you."

Hawke laughed. "Even _beskrovnyy _have a purpose."

"Hmm," he murmured, and even his lowered voice was loud enough to rumble in Hawke's chest; he looked to the lieutenant again, and a moment later Hawke caught the sudden glint of lamplight on a dozen bayoneted rifles leveled at their hearts.

All amusement was gone in an instant. Her back stiffened, her weight rocking to her toes; behind her she felt Fenris put two fingers to her wrist in warning and knew that there were more rifles at their backs. Fear tightened around her throat like a closed hand, because creature as she was she had refuge in shadow and mist, but Fenris was human and Isabela was human, and to stand as they did in the center of a silent arena only jeopardized their lives further with every second.

In both warning and appeal, Hawke said, "General Aristov."

He leaned towards her like an oak tree tipping, and from the corner of her eye Hawke saw Aveline ungently escorted into the makeshift ring, her husband's men left to stand outside in wide-eyed concern. "You are _beskrovnyy_," he said, as if she was not aware, "but you walk through the city unleashed. You lack guidance of your own, but you insert yourselves in the affairs of others. You fight with murderers and thieves," and here his eyes flicked to Isabela, "and you do not question them. Explain this to me."

"My friends make their own choices."

"Do they?" he said, and again he looked to Isabela. "And do they fall on their own as well?"

There was something too pointed in that, but Aveline stepped forward first, her hair sliding free of her headband, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed with anger. "There's no need for such threats. If you must challenge someone, challenge me. I stand for all of us."

If Hawke had not been watching her already, she would have missed the sudden flash of emotion that passed over Isabela's face. It was there only an instant, like sunlight glancing through the crest of a wave, but it was long enough for her to see shame, and gratitude, and an honest and open affection that Isabela would never have permitted herself otherwise. Then Isabela put her hand on Aveline's shoulder, tossing her head at the general where he stood in easy unconcern. "No need for that, Big Girl," she said. "I didn't take anything I didn't put back."

_Isabela—! _But the general seemed unsurprised and unimpressed, and he folded his arms, the heavy wool of his coat straining over forearms like iron bars. "It is fortunate you did. This might have gone differently otherwise."

Isabela let out a high, indignant scoff and started to protest, but Fenris shifted his weight behind Hawke in warning and she stepped between them, beside Aveline, and from the edges of the street she heard a handful of rifles cocked. Hawke drew herself up, knowing there was nothing imposing in it, knowing _she _was next to nothing before a man who commanded so many. The whirling activity around them had slowed, eddying into something slower but no less heavy with intent, and though she was little more than a pebble to their river she would not be silent before the tide. "Easy," she said. "There's no need to spit anyone on a sword, verbal or otherwise. You're leaving, we're staying, and everyone's got the same number of things they came with."

The general's face was impassive. "And you feel this is sufficient recompense for the insult, Hawke?"

"I am with Isabela," Hawke said, not entirely sure it was an answer but certain all the same; Fenris said nothing but moved as well, the three of them a barrier both symbolic and utterly ineffective between the Russian general and their friend.

"Hawke—" Isabela started, her voice low – but before she could speak the general lifted his hand for silence, and at the gesture it seemed even the little waves lapping at the stone dock below them grew still.

"I know of your churchwoman's plot," he said, his voice granite, "and I know of the part you played in stopping it. It is only my lack of disgust for you that keeps my hand from your unworthy companion."

"Un_worthy_!" Isabela squawked, and it was only Aveline's quick glare that stopped her from speaking further. Still, the rifles lifted around them, and the tension began to ease, and for the first time in ten minutes Hawke felt safe enough to draw in a breath.

"Thank you," she said, and around them the tide began to flow again towards the ship. "I did not wish for this to come to bloodshed."

"And this from _beskrovnyy_. Truly, this city is an unnatural place."

"But home."

He turned his head to his waiting ship, his eyes on distant shores; then he said, frowning hard enough to crack stone between his eyebrows, "I have been denied my homeland too long."

_That _Hawke knew, and too well, but the general seemed to be a man who would neither appreciate nor welcome her sympathy, and soon enough he swung his head back to survey them again where they stood. The wind knifed between them, bitter and frigid, and Hawke sincerely regretted not changing out of the flimsy satin shoes she'd been wearing with the ecru lace.

"Detective Inspector," Aristov said, his voice dry, and Aveline pursed her lips but did not correct him. "In an hour your shores will be your own again. You may inform your husband that his hollow peace will be returned to him without incident."

"General," Aveline said evenly, touching the hilt of her sword under her coat before putting her fists on her hips.

He gazed at her a long moment, then glanced to Hawke. "Keep your purpose clear, Hawke. I would not see a worthy opponent die needlessly."

"I'm flattered."

"It is not flattery," Aristov said, and his voice was hard now as ice, hard as a stone on the side of a mountain. "This cesspit of a city cannot be allowed to persist as it is. There is a deep rot here that must be dug out by the root before the withered vines will live again."

There was something in his tone, something dangerous— "And do you mean to be the one to split the wheat from the chaff?"

"If necessary."

"I hope it won't come to that," she said, and meant it.

"That remains to be seen," rumbled the general, his eyes dark with promise, and gestured at the last of his men still trickling after the others. The docks were nearly silent now, the houses and inns that had kept the Russians so long now empty of lodgers, the few candles still lit here and there in silent windows giving off a forlorn light. "Keep your city for now, Hawke, and champion the causes of your wretches. But know that one day, we shall return."

"Come with an olive branch."

The general looked to his men where they stood on the ship, then let his gaze fall to the lieutenant awaiting him a respectful distance out of earshot. "War comes whether you will it or not," he said at last, and the finality of the words sent a ripple of fear down Hawke's spine. "But it will not be my war that first finds you."

"I hope not," Hawke said, and before she could think better of it she stuck her hand into the empty space between them. Her toes were completely numb. "Safe travels, General."

Aristov paused; and then he engulfed her fingers in his massive gloved hand. "And you, Hawke," he said, and he left.

She watched him a moment, the general's bar fading into shadow as he strode after his lieutenant. The gangplank drew up behind him, the last aboard, the last of the ebbing tide, and as the steam engines began to whir and clank Hawke spun on her heel. Not peaceful, not quite, but bloodless and bladeless and in the grander view of her recent history she could be more than satisfied with that outcome. Aveline seemed faintly puzzled as they began to make their way back to the waiting cab; Fenris met her gaze without speaking, eyebrows raised in question; and Isabela was lost in a steady stream of angry mutters that boiled over as Hawke glanced in her direction.

"_Unworthy_!" she jeered, and thumbed her nose over her shoulder after the general. "I'll unworthy him all the way back to Vladivostok."

"Dire threats indeed. I'm sure if he heard them he is now suitably wary."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," Isabela added with such a sudden lightness that Hawke grew immediately wary herself. "I know what language he speaks."

"Isabela. What did you do?"

"Nothing at all," she said, airy as daylight, and, humming, pinned the general's red-and-white medal to her shirt.

-.-.-

Several evenings later, after a hard freeze that snapped boughs from trees and paved the streets in black ice, Hawke sank into the burgundy armchair nearest the roaring fire and sighed.

"And you thought he wouldn't come."

"I did not," Hawke said frankly, and Anders leaned his elbow on the back of her chair. Varric had warned her that Fenris had not been enthused at the news of her Christmas party and she hadn't truly been surprised; it seemed a bit…_festive _for his tastes, even though no one would be attending but their particular friends, and somehow she had not quite been able to picture him standing before the wreaths Orana had hung on every wall or the aromatic garland strung with red ribbon through the banisters.

And the house _did _look festive, candles alight in every window and fires burning merrily in every hearth. The guests, too, had dressed for the occasion; Bethany had matched her deep green to Hawke's crimson with the white-and-gold trim from Worth, and Merrill had a sprig of cranberries in her hair. Even Sandal had been humming something earlier that Hawke was almost entirely certain was meant to be The First Noël.

But there Fenris was across her library, wineglass in one hand as he spoke to Varric, and though he was not _smiling, _per se, there was amusement in his eyes and an ease in his shoulders that said more of his pleasure in the company than his words ever could. Even better, he was in that trim black coat and the dark grey vest that fit him better than a glove, the one he'd worn the night she'd first danced with him at Lady Dace's yearly fête, and as striking as he looked in it there was nothing more she wanted than to run her fingers over the carefully stitched silk, to feel his breath catch under her hands as she freed each one of those etched brass buttons—

"_Hawke._"

"What?" she said, startled, and Anders snorted.

"I could set your drapes on fire right now, and I don't think you'd even notice."

Hawke rolled her eyes and hid her smile in her drink. "Did you need me for something, or did you only come over to heckle me?"

"I asked you twice if you'd heard anything from that General Aristov since he left."

"Nothing," Hawke said, and shook her head, her smile fading. The general's final words of war had left her uneasy – she had written to both him and Alistair in the week after his sudden departure, but only Alistair had responded with a short, terse note of unrest and rebellion in the east. But there was little she could do about it from London, and nothing at all at the immediate moment, and with some effort Hawke put both Aristov and war from her mind. "Let's talk of something else," she told Anders. "It is a Christmas party, after all."

"Isabela's certainly making the most of it," he muttered, and jerked his head to the doorway where Isabela held a bunch of mistletoe over Bethany and Bodahn. Bodahn said something and lifted the tray in his hands; Bethany laughed, shaking her head, and carefully leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. Bodahn flushed and Bethany laughed again, and behind Hawke Anders let out a puff of air that seemed suspiciously aggrieved.

"I'm sure Isabela will oblige you if you go stand beside her," Hawke told him, leaning her head back against the back of the armchair to look up at him. Anders had scrounged up a fine evening suit from somewhere – she hadn't the faintest idea where he found most of his clothes – and though it was a year or two out of fashion he wore it well, and when he curled his lip she realized he had even shaved.

"Ugh, no. I won't _beg._"

"It's hardly begging if you're – well. Whatever you and Bethany are at the moment."

Anders sighed again, though this one was more pensive than frustrated. "I wish I knew. It's just – _different_ this time. Like this is my last chance."

"I can't believe that. You two have had more final battles than Varric's novels."

"I _don't—_" Anders began; he stopped, then started again, his voice tight. "I care about your sister, Hawke. Drowning each other in blood is not my idea of elegant romance."

"Elegance is overrated," Hawke said, half-serious, and levered herself from the chair before turning to face Anders. "Just go _talk _to her," she told him more gently, and exchanged his empty glass for her near-full one. "I think that's the best start."

Anders quirked a smile. "Perhaps you should take your own advice," he murmured, and he flicked his eyes meaningfully at Fenris near the fire before moving across the room to intercept Bethany.

Hawke watched him go, watched too Fenris smirk at something Varric said – and leaned against her armchair instead. "Ah, hypocrisy," she muttered, and raised Anders's empty glass in silent toast to herself.

One month and two weeks. Forty-two days exactly since he'd come and gone from her bed as quickly as a flash of lyrium-light in the darkness. Not that she was _counting_, and not that she was hurt – but it did make a woman wonder when the man she lo—cared for seemed as easy in her house as she was _not_, despite the fact that he'd been the one to leave her with nothing but the cold light of day for company.

Hawke scoffed and raised her glass to her lips, only to remember that it was Anders's glass and that it was, more importantly, empty. Bodahn's drink-laden tray he had laid on the little low table between the sofa and the fire; she made her way towards it, weaving around Sebastian in his cassock as he explained something of Easter to Merrill, who seemed rather more interested in the explanations of the feasting than the vespers. _There _– victory. She was not entirely certain what Bodahn had concocted, but it was amber and clear and smelled _very _strongly of alcohol, and Hawke had little need for more than that.

The first swallow made her sputter; the second went down smoother, and the third set a little curl of heat unfurling in her chest, emboldening and silencing all at once. Then suddenly her glass was nearer empty again than full, which seemed a dangerous state for both her peace of mind and her sobriety, but before she could decide which she valued more a tanned, graceful hand settled over the tumbler's rim.

"Permit me," said Fenris at her ear, and as she looked at him he lifted the small square decanter from the tray and, with the precision of a lifetime's practice, poured the golden liquor into her glass.

Hawke watched him stopper the decanter again and replace it on the tray. Without drinking again, she said, "You surprise me."

A faint, twisted smile slid across his face. "You would not let it pass without remark."

"You know what my mouth does when I drink."

His eyes fell to it and she drew in a breath. For a moment his gaze sharpened like the honed edge of a blade; and then with effort on both their parts the moment broke, and Hawke set her untouched glass on the table. "I suppose there's something to be said for having a choice in the matter."

Something flashed behind his eyes at that, something at once epiphanic and as familiar as an old song. He said, "_Hawke_—"

"Kiss, you silly fools!"

They jerked apart swiftly enough that Hawke would have spilled her drink had she still been holding it. Isabela stood behind them both, mistletoe dangled aloft over their heads, and the broadest grin Hawke had yet seen that evening was spreading across her face.

"You have the _worst _sense of timing," Hawke snapped, too rattled to temper her tone.

"Only if it doesn't work," she said, unruffled, and jerked a thumb over her shoulder where Anders and Bethany were blushing furiously. "Now stop stalling."

"You should have been a salesman," said Hawke, but Fenris was already turning his head away. She could not miss that silent refusal, nor that flash in his eyes shuttered away as if a curtain had been drawn. Regret swelled in the back of Hawke's throat, hot and swift and _frustrated_, and she pinched the bridge of her nose until her words were again under her control. "Excuse me," she told Isabela, ignoring Fenris's stiffness. "This has gone straight to my head."

Isabela lifted an eyebrow as if she saw more than Hawke meant; then she shrugged and said, "Your loss."

"I think so," Hawke told her, laughing, though wry did not quite win out over sour. Isabela pursed her lips – and Fenris said nothing at all, and with a nod to them both Hawke turned on her heel and headed for the doors to the terrace.

It was bitterly cold outside, colder still since Hawke had not thought to bring her cloak, but there was no wind and the liquor was still hot in her chest, and for the few minutes she needed to regain her composure she would be strong enough to endure the night's weather. The terrace was not large – perhaps four people might fit it comfortably – but it might as well have been an entire island for how alone Hawke felt in that moment.

_Idiot_, she thought bitterly, and wrapped her bare fingers around the vining wrought-iron railing at her waist. She knew loneliness well; knew rejection too, and scorn, and hatred as old as the hills for what she was and what she had become. She had known from the beginning that Fenris was not an easy man to understand, nor a man given to easy friendship – and yet, somehow, when she had turned in her room to see him standing in her doorway with his jaw clenched and his eyes as dark as hers had ever been, she had been fool enough to let herself think the night had been more than it was, more than he had ever meant it to be – more than her nature or his would ever allow.

But – enough. These were not novel thoughts; this was old, trodden ground, the fields stamped flat with fretting and conjecture until there was nothing new to be found in it. No matter how she struggled against her jesses there was no hope of flight, no hope of ever rising above what she was: a creature shackled to the setting of the sun. Self-pity would do her no good – there was nothing to be done, then, but to accept the truth and try to piece together the cracked places in her heart. Her hands were freezing, the townhouses across the streets silent and dim with evening, and Hawke stared at them without seeing.

Forty-two _days._

The door opened behind her. Hawke knew who it was before she heard the step, before he even opened his mouth to say her name. Still she sighed at the sound of it, a bone-deep rush of air that left her near to empty at the end, and said, wearily, "Why did you come out here?"

"You left."

Hawke snorted and said nothing. Fenris seemed to realize what he had said; his weight shifted and she heard him breathe as if to speak, but he checked himself twice before saying at last, "I needed to – speak with you."

"The plaintiff may present his case."

"Privately."

"Speak away. The jury has been recused. The executioner, however, I'm keeping on retainer."

"Hawke."

"I do charge by the hour, you know."

"Will you _face _me?" Fenris snapped, warm with temper, and, startled, Hawke half-turned from the railing. His jaw was tense, his white hair tousled as if he had run his hand through it; but his eyes were blazing green as the flame off copper, and in an instant Hawke felt nothing of the cold.

Now that he had her eyes he did not wait for her to interrupt. "I need to speak with you," he said again, low and tight, and took two quick steps towards her until she could feel his heat across the little space between them. She was pressed against the railing now, the leaf of an iron vine pressing hard and cold into the small of her back through the embroidered satin – and his hands were firm on her bared arms, holding her in place, holding her against her flight. "I – you said – there was a choice."

"So there is," she said, a trifle unsteady. "Was. Isn't there?"

The muscles of his throat worked as he swallowed, as he struggled to find voice for whatever thought had trapped him. "Not always. Not – when—" He gritted his teeth, lowered his eyes, raised them again—and this time there was something stronger in them, something fierce and true and _certain _as Hawke could not remember him ever being before.

"That night," he said, "I _chose._"

Hawke's breath caught. His voice was open, _pleading_, desperate for her to understand – but Hawke was raw with betrayal and wounded to the heart with forty-two damned days of awkward conversations and stilted silences, and she could not accept so easily the hope he offered now, not when she could not trust him not to tear it away from her again.

"You left," she said, choking on the echo even as her hands came up to wrap around his wrists.

"Yes," he said, as tense with frustration as she was herself. "I – at that time – _Hawke_. Forgive me. I am not – master of myself."

Hawke let out a short bark of a laugh. "And that's the problem, isn't it?"

Fenris's eyes clenched closed, his brows pinching together as if she had cut him open. "Yes. Hawke. Danarius still lives and still hunts me and I cannot – I can't—"

"God!" Hawke cried, more a gasp than a shout. "I'd kill the man myself if he stood here. Damn him. And _blast _you," she added furiously, and before his surprise could give way to hurt she leaned forward and kissed him. She did not stay long enough for him to retreat – and she could not tell, in that brief moment, whether the noise he made was of astonishment or anger – but when she pulled away his hands had tightened on her arms. "You've left me love's pauper and I can't even take you to task for it."

He flinched. "I will not ask you for something I cannot give myself."

"You can. You have. Or isn't that why you followed me out here, to ask me to wait for you?"

"I have – no right."

"Of course you do," she snapped, though her fingers were gentle as they slid down the inside of his wrists, as they passed over the thrumming lines of lyrium laid under his skin, as she touched the red band wrapped around his wrist where his coat's cuff hid it. "That's what this means. What our _friendship_ means. Or – what it meant to me."

Fenris let out a short, defeated sigh and let his grip loosen on her arms, let his hands slide up, over the lace at her shoulders and her bare throat until they settled on her cheeks, his fingers sliding into the careful twist Orana had made of her hair. The heat of the liquor was gone, the satin of her red dress no match to the icy weather – but the shiver that escaped her had little to do with the cold. "_Why_ can't you do anything by halves?" Hawke whispered, feeling the threatening prick of tears behind her eyes. She would not let them fall; they would be snow before they left her skin.

His thumb stroked over her cheek. "Hawke…"

"Of course I understand, you louse," she told him, an answer to a question he could not give words to. "I've always understood. That doesn't mean I have to care for it one whit."

A smile quirked up a corner of his mouth, wry and damning as a knife to her heart, and when he drew her towards him she went without a word. His lips were gentle on hers, undemanding and without anger, and when the kiss was over Hawke let her forehead rest against his for several minutes. "_I _chose," he said again, quietly, and she closed her eyes.

When at last she drew away she shivered again, and this time it was without doubt from the coldness of the night. Fenris blinked and looked at her as if only realizing just now that her dress offered no warmth, but she shook her head when he made to give her his jacket. "Only a moment more," she told him, and dug her freezing fingers into the silk-hidden pocket of her gown until she could hand him a small dark box. "Here," she said without preamble. "You might as well have your Christmas present now."

Something in his face changed, a flash of embarrassment as if he had forgotten the holiday entirely, but Fenris obediently lifted the lid to reveal the pocket watch inside. The chain was gold, as was the chasing; the lid itself was a red emblem on ivory, and in his eyes Hawke saw surprise flicker after recognition.

"I know this shape," Fenris murmured, lifting the watch to the level of his eyes. As it spun, the gold case caught the light spilling out from the library behind them in lines brighter than the stars, lighting and dying as quickly as fire across her face, in the green of Fenris's eyes.

"It's the family crest," Hawke said, and Fenris caught the watch in one hand to stop its movement. "The Amell part of the family, anyway. My mother gave this to my father when they fled to America."

She did not know if he understood what she meant – but his mouth twisted as he wrapped the chain around two fingers. "This is too precious an heirloom. I cannot take it."

"You're family whether you like it or not," Hawke said tartly, closing his hands over the watch. "Regardless of – us. Keep it, or I'll tell Bethany all her work tracking it down in our attic was for nothing."

His eyebrow lifted as if he saw through her falsehood – no attic for that watch, but a polished mahogany box lined in black velvet kept locked with the silver – but his fingers tangled around the chain, and then between her own. "Thank you," he said – and then, as if struck with memory, he freed one hand to pull a small box of his own from his coat pocket. "And – I have meant to return these to you for some time."

The shape of it was vaguely familiar – and when Hawke opened it she realized why, and she could not stop the laugh that burst free. "As chary as a miser," she told him, still smiling, and lifted one of her silver cartridges from the white box.

"They cannot serve the purpose you gave them," Fenris told her, and Hawke remembered the note she'd penned, still flush with survival and the thrill of fresh blood. _For the next time,_ she'd written, certain he would be gone with morning and her life would be gone with him. But she had awoken to find herself unmarred by any silver bullet, untouched by the cold iron of a fantastic elf. Fenris had stood there instead.

"Then give them a new purpose," Hawke murmured, and slid the box home again in his pocket. "They are only simple things – you may choose for yourself what they become."

Fenris's eyes flew to hers, startled, but he did not argue and he did not pull away. Hawke's hands lingered a moment on the silk of his vest and the bright brass buttons that bound it – but before she could indulge her more prurient desires she let her fingers fall between them, safe and empty.

"Peace, signore?" she asked, and lifted her gaze to meet his.

"Peace," he answered, his voice rough, though they both knew it was more than that. It was a declaration of intent, a _promise, _and though he was not a man whose word meant much she knew that he meant this. It was not so hard to understand him as she had first thought, that night in the London rain, nor to hear the things he could not find voice for, the words hidden away between each beat of his heart. She had only, she thought as he bent once more to kiss her, to listen.

Then he drew back, and he smiled, clear and honest, and Hawke stilled at the sight of it. There was no cold, no faint laughter from the library; she was as smooth and wholly silent as a lake hidden from the sky, disturbed only by a single drop of a thought that at once destroyed her tranquility and immediately became one with it, as inseparable and indistinguishable from her heart as if it had always been of one piece.

_Oh_! she thought.

I love him.

"You are cold," Fenris added when the quiet revelation had passed and her time had started again, and Hawke could not deny it. He stepped ahead of her to open the door, then looked back at her, and for an instant the bright warmth of the library fell over her skin like a physical thing. Isabela caught her eye from where she stood by Varric inside and she gestured upwards, grinning; Hawke followed the motion, and when she saw what Isabela meant a groan escaped her before she could check it.

Above the glass-paned door, pinned to the lintel with bright red ribbon, was a cheery green spray of mistletoe.

"Choose," Fenris said, almost smiling, and offered her his hand. She could not help but laugh; she could not help but take it, and when he turned, Hawke followed him into the light.


	12. Old Ghosts Rise

**Chapter Twelve**

Old Ghosts Rise

-.-.-

These be  
Three silent things:  
The falling snow. . the hour  
Before the dawn. . the mouth of one  
Just dead.

_—Triad, _Adelaide Crapsey

.

I am not sleepy myself, though I am weary… weary to death. However, I must try to sleep. For there is tomorrow to think of, and there is no rest for me until…  
—_Dracula, _Bram Stoker

-.-.-

Fenris jerked awake like he'd been shot.

For a moment he could not remember what dream had driven him from sleep. Then the images rose like a storm-swollen sea, rolling over him one after the other: _Danarius's weight at his back, his teeth deep in his shoulder_; _Danarius's fingers sliding over his bare chest, cold as the belly of a fish_; _Danarius's mouth – and Hawke's face, Hawke's eyes, Hawke's voice laughing at him, vicious, mocking, _cruel—

"Stop," Fenris said aloud, breaking the storm, and threw his arm over his eyes. His skin was slick with sweat – vivid dreams indeed to have rattled him so badly – and his heart thudded so hard and fast in his chest that it ached. Even the January chill seeping into the room was not enough to cool him, and he flung back the layers of quilts and blankets and strode half-naked to pry open his window. The sudden shock of breeze that slid through helped; the water in his washing basin did too, once he'd broken the ice, and after he liberally doused his head Fenris gripped the edge of the nightstand with both hands and closed his eyes.

Why could he not _shake _this? Awake he had few fears and none at all of Hawke; asleep she became at once an object of lust and a thing of black terror, teeth and blood and old hatred and older power, a being that by its very strength reduced him to even less than the slave that he once was. This was the sixth time in the two months since the night he had spent with Hawke that he had dreamed of her – and the third time that he had woken shaking, sweating, nerveless with fear.

Fenris dragged both hands down his face, then glared at himself in the mirror. "Conquer this," he demanded of his reflection. "You _will _conquer this."

The mirror made no reply and, grimacing, Fenris pushed away from himself. A glance at Hawke's pocket watch hanging from his bedpost told him it was just after two o'clock in the afternoon. Sunlight winked over the gold casing, and at the sight of it Fenris felt the vestiges of his nightmares begin to fade. The corpse-thing of his nightmares would have never given him something so precious; the shade of his old master would have never permitted him to keep it.

Though if nothing else, Fenris thought dryly as he pulled his gauntlets from their case, Hawke _had_ certainly wreaked havoc on his ability to keep decent hours.

Without further delay, he began to arm and armor himself for the evening's assignment. His sword he left sheathed and in its place; Hawke had warned him that any battle would be in close quarters tonight, and in that case the greatsword's arc would be little more than a liability. His well-used vest with the reinforced leather strapping fit more snugly than the last time he had worn it, a product of both regular meals and heartier food than he was accustomed to, but the weight was muscle and Orana's cooking had been excellent besides, and Fenris was not inclined to regret it.

He tucked the Remington into its holster on his hip and headed downstairs, yanking on his gauntlets as he went. Varric was waiting for him, Bianca at his side, and though the sun was still up he knew Hawke and Aveline would already be on their way to the train station to meet them – even if Hawke would be swathed head to toe in boots and gloves and one of Isabela's ridiculous veiled hats. The supposed hideout of the vampire cartel they were seeking was less than an hour north of town, but the ancient manor was secluded and dilapidated besides, and Hawke had had little desire to hunt through an unfamiliar building in the dead of night for creatures who knew the shadows better.

The novelty of fighting with Hawke in daylight was not lost on him either, and as Fenris tugged on his overcoat and walked with Varric into the cloudy afternoon, he found himself rather looking forward to it.

-.-.-

They arrived at the manor an hour or so before dusk. Hawke was indeed veiled and gloved and covered from head to toe, though she did shed her long, heavy coat on the train to reveal her standard light brown vest and trousers. Aveline was similarly attired, though she had chosen to keep her sword; Varric wore his heavy leather duster and a beatific smile as he hefted an oiled Bianca to his shoulder.

"_Well_," said Hawke, and the brown veil over her mouth fluttered as she sighed. "This looks absolutely terrible."

And it did. The manor was enormous and falling apart at the seams, once-cheerful red brick stained black with the soot of an old, unchecked fire. A giant oak had been split by lightning in some forgotten storm and fallen into the house, caving in a major portion of the left side of the building. The oak was dead now, rotted from the inside out, and the leafless branches that spread through the now-opened rooms revealed glimpses of faded damask, of rich velvet bedcurtains shredded by age and discolored by rain.

If it had been anyone other than Hawke Fenris would have let the ruin lie where it stood, untouched and unbreached, but it _was_ Hawke and it was a band of vampires that needed ousting, and when she led their little group through the sagging front door Fenris went with almost no complaint.

The house was dim inside, dim enough that Hawke could pull away her hat and veil and leave them hanging on a once-noble statue's lance in the foyer. The hall was larger than Fenris had expected, half-blackened by flame but still showing remnants of its lost glory under the filth. It grew darker as they began to pick their way through, and dirtier, and soon the dust grew thick enough that Fenris could see the tracks of footprints along the bare stone floors: many feet, and made recently. His gun was already out; now he cocked the hammer and moved to the front with Aveline, the two of them silent vanguards in the twilit hall.

"Ugh," said Hawke behind him, and Fenris followed her look of pointed distaste to a corner of the ceiling where a massive spiderweb had spread. "If there are gigantic spiders too, I'm leaving you three to handle this alone."

"The sun is still up."

"The sun doesn't have eight legs," Hawke told him, shuddering. Fenris snorted a laugh, and laughed again at her quiet noise of pique, and when the hem of Varric's duster brushed over the back of Hawke's legs the undignified yelp she let out sundered him from his control completely.

"I am _so _pleased you see the humor in this," Hawke added tartly once he and Aveline had recovered themselves, careful all to keep their voices hushed despite their amusement, but there was true humor in her voice and no offense beneath it.

"You lead me to strange places, Hawke," Fenris told her, and lifted one shoulder in a shrug as Varric chuckled.

"And let us all mark 3rd January," Aveline added, grinning as she put a friendly hand on his shoulder, "as the day I first saw Fenris laugh."

Hawke made a sudden sharp motion and Fenris glanced at her – for a moment there was startlement in her eyes, and shadow, but when he made to step closer she forced a smile and the dark thing vanished. "He who laughs last laughs best. Or something."

"Or something," Varric agreed, and nodded at the swiftly-darkening hallway still stretching out before them. "Come on, let's get this over with. Spiders or no spiders, this hallway's too ominous to linger in."

In the end they found the creatures in what remained of the ballroom. It had once been grand, but the brass sconces were dark and spotted with dirt and the fine wall hangings mildewed beyond recovery, and a number of pieces of furniture had been dragged into the room and abused for firewood. The vampires themselves huddled around a dark pit in the floor, around a figure that lay moaning at its edge beneath them; Hawke sucked in a sharp breath like a cracking branch and started forward, and at the sound ten red-mouthed faces turned to their entrance.

"_Decimus_—" cried a woman with auburn hair; the leader of the group straightened beside the deep pit, and he lifted his hand, and they attacked.

The battle was short but spectacular. Aveline took point, her longsword a needle-thin flash of sunlight through the broken windows; Varric immediately peeled away to take cover behind the upended furniture, Bianca spitting out three bolts at a time as he ran. Fenris kept close to Aveline when he could, the night-splitting retorts of the Remington supporting her until he could reach the creatures with his ghosted gauntleted hands, but regardless of where he moved he could not help but be aware of Hawke.

He did not know whether it was instinct left from Danarius's careful training or an unconscious choice of his own – but in the end, he did not care. She touched her fingers to her forehead and blew a woman back into Fenris where he waited to tear her heart free; he lifted the Remington and she held his next target in place until he had the clearest shot. He ducked under a blow from one of the older men and saw Hawke fray into mist across the room; then instinct tracked her, and choice tracked her, and once he had torn the man's heart from her chest he watched her reappear before the leader Decimus, ice in her hands, ice in her eyes, watched her freeze Decimus from head to heel into utter immobility.

He saw, too, the sorrow and the anger that rose like stones to break the smooth river-waters of her composure. They already seemed nearer the surface than Fenris would have expected; when Hawke knelt to find the man the creatures had been bleeding already dead they burst through in the clean white froth of fury. She put a hand that burned blue as the heart of a fire over Decimus's frozen chest – and even as Fenris watched the man's back exploded in flame and blood. Then, slowly, the ice-covered figure faltered and fell, toppling silently into the pit at its back.

The auburn-haired woman shrieked and flew at Hawke – but Varric was there first, two bolts thudding into the side of the woman's throat. Aveline's sword followed through her heart from behind, Sandal's inscribed runes glowing faintly as the woman touched the tip of the sword in shock – and died.

She was the last, Fenris realized as he straightened. Ten vampires there had been; and ten vampires were dead on the stone around them, pale and still and without life. Aveline and Varric began to move among them, looking for both survivors and identification, but Hawke turned her head away from them and did not move again.

Fenris was almost to her side before he realized he had stepped forward. She stood at the edge of the pit, looking down into the hole that spanned nearly four meters across and the same deep; the stone at their feet was broken and coarse, and the brick mortar of the crumbling foundation laid a meter or so below that, but the rest of the pit was earth, black and damp and sheared away as clean as magic, and at the bottom of the pit beneath Decimus's frozen body was a thick and fetid layer of bones that would have risen halfway to Fenris's knees.

"Human," Hawke muttered, pointing, and Fenris saw the long thigh-bones where they rested against the pit's wall. He could not tell precisely how many had died there – at least two dozen, he guessed, from both the depth of the pile and its denseness – but it mattered little in the end, because that only meant they were two dozen living souls too late. And another, he added to himself as he looked at the fresh death of the man at the pit's far edge, blood smeared over his bearded face, his glassy eyes staring blind at the painted ceiling.

Hawke saw where he looked and let out a small, frustrated sigh. "A _waste_," she said, and her fists clenched at her sides. "Such a damned waste. An hour might have saved him."

"And it might not," Fenris told her, unflinching at her quick hard look. "You should save your regrets for a worthier cause."

"Innocent lives are always worth grieving," Hawke said, and she closed her eyes. There was no humor in her face now, no light – something had changed in that moment in the hallway, something strong enough and deep enough to shutter away even her irrepressible smile, and Fenris could not keep back his concern. But this was not the time to ask her, nor the place, and what words he could find he kept for the moment to himself.

Aveline came up behind them, her voice quiet. "What should we do with him?"

"The others have to be burned. The man we'll bury – he deserves that much. The rest of these souls have gone to God – they won't care if we let them share their tomb." Hawke stared into the pit of bones a moment more, her mouth pinched, her jaw tight. "This place is cursed enough for a dozen graveyards."

It took only a few minutes to drag the twice-dead corpses to the pit, only a few seconds more for Fenris and Aveline to snap legs from chairs and tables for kindling. Hawke drew in a handful of deep breaths, her eyes closed; then she lifted both hands in front of her and a storm of fire roared into being, into a wild bright whirling tower that stretched towards the ceiling as it to reach heaven through it. It soared over them only an instant, only a breath – and it shrank, sinking into something more manageable and more tame, surrendering itself to the shackles of tinder Fenris and Aveline had found for it.

Hawke watched them burn, and Fenris watched her. Her back was stiff, her shoulders rigid; he wished to comfort her and shake her both, lost in half-memories of her face as she had smiled at him, caught too in the knowledge that _this _was what her kind did, that this reality, this _death _was hers but for her choices.

Her choices, and her heart.

At last the fire burned low, and Hawke let out a long, slow breath as if the souls of the dead went with it. Then she turned and stepped forward, moving to meet Fenris where he stood some little distance behind her. The sun was setting at last over the western woods; it threw a thin streak through the broken windows, straining across Hawke's path as if to bar her way, but Hawke either did not notice or did not care. It clawed down her cheek in a line of gold fire as she stepped through the dying light without faltering, without hesitating – but her eyes burned brighter still, fixed on Fenris as if he were the only thing to keep her from twisting into smoke with the dead behind her.

For a moment he felt like the only thing of earth and flesh in the room. Then Hawke reached him, passing into shadow again, and the moment, and the sun, were gone.

They buried the man in the garden outside, quietly. It darkened in what seemed like only minutes, dusk giving way to the rich purple haze of twilight as they worked, and by the time they were on the train home again the stars had begun to appear one by one like drops of silver paint in a sky that grew ever blacker.

But no matter how black the night sky became, nor how many grew the gleaming stars, Fenris could not shake from his mind's eye the image of Hawke standing, stepping towards him, flame rising behind her and fire gathered at her feet, her eyes hard and brilliant in the last golden gasping light of the sinking sun.

-.-.-

Fenris did not see Hawke for two weeks after that.

He did not worry at first – it was not as if these absences were uncommon lately, after all – but something tight and heavy seemed to be hanging in the air, something old, and wounded, and by the end of the second week with no word and no sign Fenris grew determined to have answers. He found Varric behind the Hanged Man's bar late one night, pouring something amber and frothy into a glass for Merrill who was perched across him, and at the sight of Fenris striding towards them both Varric's expression shifted from expectant to resigned.

Merrill swiveled in her chair to see what Varric was looking at, her green skirt catching for a moment under her own heel, and then her face split in a cheerful smile. "Good evening, Fenris!" And then: "Heaven and earth, what a frown. I _know _it's a little early in the evening to be drinking, but you needn't look so put out. Isabela says it's wonderful for the constitution and _you _drink all the time, so you oughtn't worry about me having only this little one."

"I am not worried about you," Fenris said shortly, but Varric put up one hand to curtail him.

"I know what you're going to ask," he said, both of them ignoring Merrill's delighted exclamation of _really? _as Varric set her glass in front of her. "She's fine, Sunshine's fine, they're all fine. They're just – not here."

"Then where?"

"I wish I could help you, but I'm afraid I'm sworn to secrecy," Varric said lightly, but Fenris saw again that fierce and painful light sear across Hawke's face and Varric's words alone were not enough.

"If you know where Hawke is, you must tell me."

"This is beginning to sound like an interrogation. Aren't you worried I'll just make it up?"

"Varric," he said, flattening one palm on the bar's polished mahogany surface. "She was – not well."

Varric winced at that, but before he could speak Merrill leaned forward, confusion writ across her brow. "But that's simple. It's the anniversary, isn't it?"

Fenris turned. "The anniversary?"

"Of the day her mother died. It's tomorrow. Or rather – years ago. But you know what I mean."

"Of the day—" Fenris gritted his teeth. "I was not aware."

"I told you that story was Hawke's to tell, not mine," Varric retorted, shaking his head. "I didn't even know the exact day myself. Just that it was soon."

"Tomorrow," Merrill put in helpfully, and Fenris suppressed his urge to snarl at them both. "She and Bethany always go up to the old house this time of year."

"Where?"

"Oh, the old Amell estate in Wales, of course. On the coast. That's where I met her, didn't you know?"

"No," Fenris said, attention snared despite himself. "I did not."

"Oh, yes," Merrill said, sipping thoughtfully at her drink. "I'd just left my clan in the mountains after my turning – they said they'd have nothing to do with someone who'd use the old, forbidden magic as I had. Blood's magic, I mean. I didn't have a light and I hadn't started work with fire yet and I got _terribly _lost in those twisty paths – and I was _so _afraid I'd follow one of those will o' wisps right into a marsh. Dawn was rushing over the mountain and I was beginning to worry, but then out of nowhere Ceridwen appeared to show me my way."

"I do not know Ceridwen."

"She is a figure out of our legends. Maybe you know her by a different name – she wears other faces sometimes as she needs to. Méabh? Flemeth? Oh, I suppose it doesn't matter. She comes and goes as she pleases. Anyway, she came to lead me out of the woods, and when she vanished again I could just see a red dragon flying over the trees in front of me. It took me only a minute to reach it, and then I realized it was our flag after all – the Welsh one, I mean – which was so silly of me, but it was fluttering over a wonderful little manor on the headland. And there was Hawke in the door as if she'd been waiting for me. And she was very kind and gave me a cup of tea and a biscuit. And – here I am."

Fenris grimaced. "You mean to say a witch led you to Hawke in the darkness of the night."

Merrill cocked her head. "Of course. It's hardly the strangest thing that's ever happened around Hawke."

That, Fenris supposed, was true, but it was little comfort when he considered that Hawke was still gone and worse, had gone without a word to anyone.

Without a word to _him._

But—it was not, Fenris thought bitterly, as if he had the right to know. A man such as he was _had _no rights, not when it came to Hawke, not when he had chosen half-memories and ghosts over her present reality.

Worse was the fact that he could not tell if her silence meant not absence of forethought but active omittance, if she had consciously chosen to keep this from him and therefore keep him away. If that had been her intent she would welcome his intrusion less than even Anders – but there would be no rest for him if he did _not _go, and no peace, and if there was something within his power that would lift that terrible coldness from Hawke's face he would not forgive himself if he did not at least _try_.

He had no right, not really – but he had chosen long ago.

"Tell me," Fenris said, "where to look."

Varric looked at him, long and hard, his fingers stilled in the process of wiping a glass. Then he let out a soft, heavy sigh, and Fenris felt his acquiescence before he spoke. "In Pembroke," he said, and sighed again. "By the sea. You'll have to take the eleven-thirty to Swansea, then change trains. Ask anyone at the station once you get there and they'll be able to point you in the right direction."

"Thank you," Fenris said to them both, turning on his heel – and Varric's voice caught him at the door, half-opened, Fenris himself a step between the warmth and light of the Hanged Man and the blustering winds of a wintry night.

"Be careful," Varric called, and beside him Merrill's smile turned sad. "Grief can cut deep enough to scar."

-.-.-

Dawn had come and gone by the time the train at last dragged into the Pembroke station. The sky was grey, heavy, thick with the promise of rain and the sharper taste of salt off the sea, and though Fenris was not a man given to belief in such things as portents and omens, there was a sense in his mind which he could not shake of something despairing, something _dangerous_ hanging closer than the clouds. The station was not large but it was busy nonetheless, and in short order he had hired a man with a cart to carry him to the Amell estate with all haste. The clouds thickened as they went, the journey a relatively simple distance but made uncountable leagues by anxiety, and when at last the man reined in his horses at the end of the lane a bitter wind had picked up to toss their manes and tails with mocking gusts.

The Amell estate was not overlarge, a grey ramshackle building of old stone and dark shingles set on the grassy headland not far from the sound of the sea, pale green vines creeping up the walls to suggest too many years of benign neglect. Past the house Fenris could see where the lawn gave way to young, untended trees and beyond those the barest, rock-choked edge of a bluff over the sea, but he spared little time for sightseeing as he strode to the door. The round knocker was large and old-fashioned; he rapped it twice, hard, and turned his back to the wind.

After another interminable age – did no one in this village know what it meant to hurry? – he heard light footsteps, and the door opened to reveal Orana's narrow, worried face. "Signore," she said, opening it further, and he did not miss the relief that flashed across her eyes. "How did you know? How did you—"

A woman's worried voice interrupted her. "Who is it? Is she back?"

Orana turned and Fenris saw Bethany hasten down the creaking staircase behind her, a heavy shawl over her nightgown and her feet in furred slippers. She came up to stand by Orana in the doorway, safe for the moment under the gravid cloud-cover, and said without preamble, "Have you found her?"

"Found who – found Hawke?"

"She went out for a walk just before dawn and hasn't come home. The sun's hidden well enough that she'll be all right for a little while, but if a cloud suddenly breaks—"

"I will find her," he said, and Bethany let out an unhidden breath of relief. "Where should I look?"

"She used to run the bluffs before our mother died. She hasn't gone there in years, but we haven't been back here in so long on this exact day, and I don't…"

"I will find her," Fenris said again, and turned up the collar of his overcoat. Orana saw it and pressed a spare scarf on him, a faded grey-blue as dim as the sky, and so armed and armored he was on his way.

The thin line of trees behind the house took little time to reach and less time to pass through, and in less than ten minutes he found himself on the rocky ground of the bluff that overlooked the sea. It stretched out to either side as far as he could see, the stone interrupted here and there by low-growing shrubs and hardier mosses, and as he neared the bluff's edge he saw that the bedrock slope dropped sharply off beneath him to plunge into the opaque waters near thirty meters below. The high-tide line on the bluff's face was well above the waves that crashed against it, lichen clinging to the stones in broad white stripes that withstood all efforts to batter it away.

To his right the bluffs were clear, empty of life and silent; in the distance he could see the rise of other homes and shops and the unmistakable signs of Pembroke civilization, and after a moment's deliberation he turned his back to it and went the other way.

The grassless stone unrolled before him like the edges of a furled map, rough and scarred as if a hand had gouged it into place before his feet. The trees to his left grew taller as he passed, and wilder, though the rough waters of the sea on his other hand were constant as the stars. He walked for ten minutes, and then a quarter-hour, not forgetting his purpose here but unable too to ignore the untamed beauty of the headland. It was nearly another world, a place of old life and older magic where humans had no place, and for several minutes Fenris did nothing as he walked but breathe in the sea.

Abruptly, his path changed. No longer was it straight before him; now it bent, making a small turn right before curving back sharply towards the mainland around a rise of boulders, the smallest twice his height. They jutted from the earth like great and broken bones, and Fenris knew in the way that all dreamers knew what he would see before he rounded them.

Hawke stood on a promontory in the distance, at a place where the rocky bluff-face surged out over the water; her face was turned away from him, her head thrown back, a coat that hung to her knees doing little to keep the heather-colored dress she wore beneath it from whipping in the wind. She was hatless and her hair was unbound, heavy with salt spray and tangled without hope, and as Fenris made his way towards her he knew that there was something else here between them both, something hard as the stones under his feet, and as old, and as immovable.

She looked to him when he neared, her mouth lined with grief, a wild thing as immutable and changeless as the steel-grey sky, as the slate-dark sea that churned up white froth and threw itself in futile, unending sprays against the crags that chained it beneath them. She did not speak; he came up close beside her and she looked away, to the horizon, where there was nothing but water and the storm's sky.

"Your sister is worried," he said, and the wind caught his words and carried them away.

"I didn't mean to stay out here so long," she said then, her voice hoarse and rough as if sorrow had worn it to breaking.

"Come back with me."

"I will," she told him, and added, "soon," and Fenris did not need her magic to see she meant none of it.

Neither was it an answer and Fenris knew that too, knew that what had brought her here was something colder than the January air. He could not give much, and what he had was made less in the light of the history between them, but he offered, quietly, "I don't know what to say, but – I am here."

That startled a small, quick smile from her, and when her eyes slid back to the water her gloved fingers wrapped briefly around his before sliding free. It was all he had to give, meager as it was, but if it could lift even an ounce of weight from her shoulders he did not begrudge its giving. They stood there a long time, not touching, not speaking, and watched the waves crest and burst into nothingness at their feet.

Eventually, without looking at him, Hawke said, "My mother died badly, you know."

Fenris glanced at her but did not answer; after a moment her voice went pensive, her eyes distant, and she continued. "We had _such _high hopes for this place. After everything that happened in the States, after Carver, after Bethany…it seemed like there was little that could happen to us that would not change our circumstances for the better." She drew in a breath. "We had nothing when we came. That first year was so hard, Bethany and I working all hours to turn that decrepit manor into something livable, something that would keep Bethany safe and would keep _Mother _safe. And then all at once her inheritance cleared and there was nothing we wanted that we could not have."

"Except," Fenris said quietly, "the ones you lost."

"Yes," she said, and closed her eyes as the wind picked up to catch at loose tendrils of her hair. "Except them. But you know us – we none of us Hawkes shoulder sorrow for very long. Between Orana and Bodahn and Sandal the house began to fill up again, and after a time we were happy here. But…God help me." Hawke put a hand to the base of her throat, as if her grief had swelled so hot and fast it had choked her. "A man found my mother. He pretended to be a suitor – he brought her lilies. And then one night, while Bethany and I were gone, he took her and he killed her."

Fenris did not know what to do. For all her pain there was no sob in her voice, no shine of tears in her eyes; this was a story a quarter-century old, the sorrow familiar and scarred-over, and he could not offer real comfort now to a woman who had struggled through her despair and mastered it before he had even been given his name.

"I…" Her voice faltered for a moment, not in tears but in shame, and then it steadied. "I lost my mind when we found her. He was still standing beside her, still holding the knife he'd used to butcher her body, and I went out of my senses. I wanted to kill him. I _tried_ to kill him, but he had a knife and I had—" she flung her empty hand into the air as if releasing something that burnt, "—nothing but rage."

"But you survived."

"Oh, no," she said, and laughed without mirth. "I died that night. I killed that man, and I died, and when I awoke again my sister had her hand on my neck and my blood on her mouth. She was—" Hawke lifted her face to the heavy sky. "She begged me not to leave her alone."

"I…" Fenris trailed off, hesitated, started again, wondering if there were words enough in the world to convey his meaningless sympathy. "I am _sorry_, Hawke."

She shook her head. "It was a long time ago. I learned how to live with it, how to keep to the safety of shadows, how to handle a thirst that couldn't be sated. Bethany taught me what she could. I managed. I _manage_." Her eyes slid to his. "As I'm sure you do as well."

"My history is not so long as yours. There are – blank places."

"But what is there is not without suffering."

He looked away. "No."

They were silent for many minutes; then, in something that was both explanation and apology, Fenris said, "I had a sister once."

"You never mention her."

"She—" Fenris began, searching for the words, "—was lost. After the ritual. Danarius kept me at his heel and I had no wish to leave him, and for a time I forgot she ever existed. Twelve years later, she returned."

"What happened?"

Flame, and blood, and a scream that tore his heart in half— "She died at my hand, and at my master's hand." A wave crashed hard enough below them to throw its cold spindrift high against the rocks; a wind caught it and carried it to them, breaking the salt spray of it across their faces, and Fenris closed his eyes. "That was the first time I was angry with Danarius."

Hawke sighed, a breath as much a voice of the sea as the waves below them. "Not the last."

"No. After that I resented him, but I stayed. Later I learned to hate him."

"And then you ran."

"Yes," he said, his hand spreading before them in empty explanation, "eventually. It was a slow thing. Gradual and – difficult."

"I know that difficulty," Hawke murmured, and her eyes were more distant than the horizon. After a moment, though, her fingers twined into his, and this time they lingered. "Like a river eating away at the earth. So careful and silent you forget how it was before it came."

"I thought the man was dead. After all this time – you hate him still?" That did not match what he knew of her; if anything that seemed more a reflection of himself.

"Oh, I – suppose I spread it around where I can."

There was something in her voice – Fenris pulled her to face him, and from the rocks that rose out of the dark and foaming sea below them a gull burst free in a sudden slash of white wings. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

"Hawke—"

"Leave it!"

"I will _not_," he said, and when she lifted her other hand to push him away he caught it in his own. "_Hawke_."

She looked at him, her eyes greyer in the promise of rain than he remembered, and he saw the bitterness rise in them as swiftly as a winter tide. "Fenris," she breathed, and a muscle jumped in her throat. "What would you have me say? That every day I wonder if I should have died with my mother? That every time I'm forced to ask a stranger to let me open a vein I am _disgusted_ with myself? That I am selfish enough to wish my sister loneliness, that I hate—"

She pressed her gloved palms against her forehead and Fenris's hands slid to her wrists, to her shoulders. _Now _sorrow closed her throat; now her voice dropped to little more than the biting winds that swirled around them, and as the first furious tears fought free she tried the words again. "I hate—I _hate _the thing that I became that night. _You _knew, you _know_ – that there was nothing of life in me—" She cut herself off, lifted her eyes to his, and the rough smile she gave him cut him to the heart. "You would love a normal woman better."

"_No_," he said, quiet and quick, and pulled her against his chest before he could stop himself. Her nose was cold as ice on his cheek, her mouth open in surprise; then, slowly, like a rampart wall worn thin by the passing of years, Hawke folded into herself, into him, and let his arms settle around her shoulders. "No better."

Her face sank into his shoulder, and between them she gripped his coat as if it was the only thing tethering her to the world. Fenris held her, desperately uncertain of himself but more desperate to banish this _anguish_, half-thoughts twisting themselves around the steady crash of waves and the distant cry of that swift-flying gull.

"I told you once to rise above what you were," she murmured after a time, after Fenris had begun to feel the cold even through Orana's borrowed scarf. "And yet I seem to do no better."

"Then let me return the favor." She raised her eyes to his, and Fenris held them without flinching. "This is what I have learned: each day that is not the one before it is a victory. Each morning that does not lead to death is a victory. Each step, as long as it carries you forward…" Hawke dropped her forehead against his, her breath catching, and Fenris's sigh whispered away with the waves. "There is triumph in that."

Hawke said nothing, but neither did she move, and when at last her lips pressed gently against his own Fenris let himself answer in kind. The wind was keen and growing keener, whipping Hawke's hair against his cheeks, tangling her skirts in a wheeling circle of soft grey cloth around them, but it did not matter – there was only the spray of sea on stone, and Hawke in his arms, and the slow easing away of a long and weary grief.

"Come back with me," he said again, when they had parted and Hawke had tied the wind-whipped mass of her hair at her neck.

She nodded, tucking her hand into his, and turned with him away from the bluff and the beating sea beyond it, away from the distant cry of a lonely seabird, away from the empty horizon and its spreading steel-grey sky.

Quietly, it began to rain.

-.-.-

The four of them traveled back together to London the following evening. Hawke sat beside him, still, but with less of the grief that had shadowed her since the new year, and Fenris discovered that a small white sprig of hope had taken root in his heart. It was not quite the reconcilement he wanted, not yet – but it was there and it was strong and for the moment, he could let it live in quiet peace.

But even now, that moment of peace was – only a moment.

They stopped at the Hanged Man first when they arrived, long enough for Hawke to say hello to Varric. Isabela was there too, drinking, and a strange serious look fell over her face when she saw Fenris that tightened his breath in anticipation. "Note for you upstairs," she told him, and Fenris did not know what expression he had that made Hawke follow him up to his room, but he knew what the message would be in the way he knew the pull of lyrium in his veins and yet – he _hoped—_

Hawke stood in the doorway, a dark and silent ghost, as Fenris set his jaw and unfolded the letter.

Three words, in Anso's handwriting:

_Danarius is coming._


	13. There Is Death

**AN: **Special thanks go to Jade for this chapter, for her knowledge of Catholicism and for her willingness to let me exploit its symbolism for my own nefarious purposes. **  
**

One more chapter to go after this, everyone. I'd love to know what you're thinking. :)

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen**

There Is Death

-.-.-

The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew so well.

As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

—_Dracula, _Bram Stoker

.

There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.

—Proverbs 30:14

-.-.-

All this time.

All this time and he was _still _unprepared, still caught as unaware and unguarded as a child clutching a toy. The words stared up at him as damning as any poison, black as sin, as tar that seeped over his limbs to deaden them. _Danarius is coming. _

"I must go," Fenris said aloud, hardly knowing what he was saying – and then his head came up and he crumpled the note in one hand before flinging it at his desk. Then he was at the window, shoving it open to let in the sounds of the street below him, listening for the rattle of horse hooves and low voices – and at his bureau for his rucksack and what few things would fit in it – and when did he grow to own so _much_? None of this would fit, not Hawke's books or the clothes Isabela had helped him purchase or the pen-case that had been a Christmas gift from Varric—

"_Fenris!_" cried Hawke as she gripped his arm, and Fenris whirled, wild with despair. Abruptly he realized she had said his name – had _been _saying his name for some time – and that she was white with concern – for _him. _

He sagged into her hold all at once. "Danarius is coming for me," he said, quiet, hoarse, and felt in the words the slow settling of chains around his throat. "I must go."

"No."

"He knows where I am. He will know you. I knew it was dangerous to remain in one place but I had thought – I hoped—"

"Fenris," she said again, and her grip tightened on his arms as if to hold him with her by will alone. "Stop. Listen to me. Fenris, _stop_."

"I cannot stop. I must go." There was no choice, no hope – he was a _fool_. "Somewhere else I would turn and face the tiger but I have been here too long – there is too much here to be hurt, too many of – _you—_"

"No!" Hawke took his face in both hands and forced him to meet her eyes, forced him to see the fierce light blazing in her face. "Don't run from him again. From – me. _Please._"

He grasped her wrists, unsure whether he meant to push her away or pull her closer. "I cannot fight him alone!"

"You have _me_, Fenris!"

He stopped. The words dropped into him, one by one, a handful of star-bright embers sparking from the heart of a coal that burned with truth. He waited for Hawke to – recant, or laugh, or turn away – but she only looked at him as if the words had been an _easy _thing to say, as if she had not just offered a slave who owned nothing the most precious gift he had ever known.

She must have seen something of the shock in his face because her hands gentled on his arms, slid carefully to touch his jaw. He still loosely held her wrists; her eyes searched his for something he could hardly name, let alone give, and yet she smiled all the same, a trembling, uncertain thing, and she kissed him.

Fenris could hardly find his breath before – now it was stricken from him entirely as Hawke's mouth moved over his own, as his arms came of their own around her neck to pull her closer. "You have me," she said again, her lips still against his mouth. "And you have time. We have time."

"He will not wait—"

"But he is not _here. _Not yet." She drew back, held his face to hers again. "Varric will know when he'll arrive. Aveline will have everyone in a uniform watching the gates; we'll ask Isabela to get eyes on the seas. She's got friends everywhere – if he comes by water we'll know when, where, and who with before he's a day within docking."

"You cannot – I will not ask you to do this, Hawke. I _can't_."

"It's already done," she told him gently. "No matter when he arrives, Danarius will not find you without friends."

It was too much – it was _unbearable_, the gratitude and love that swelled in him to be choked almost immediately by the anxiety that she might be hurt in his defense, that _any _of her – their – friends might be hurt in his selfish search for freedom. But she had told him once what friendship was to her, and what it meant between them, and if Fenris knew one thing he knew the importance of lifting one's head and without coercion, without force, looking forward to the end of all things and—

Making a choice.

"Yes," he said at last, and let the word take with it all the weight of a decade's lonely flight. If nothing else he would stand here and not falter; if nothing else Danarius would not find him alone, frightened, fleeing, desperate for the safety of the shadows between days. He had friends who would stand with him.

He had Hawke.

-.-.-

The ship arrived on the last day of January.

It was Anders who found him first, in the end, Anders with his impoverished clinic, with his impoverished patients – and Anders of all people who coaxed the sailor with pneumonia to speak of the Italian _conte_ he had sailed with, the pale one with black eyes who had refused to emerge from his cabin _de luxe _before dusk. From there it was any easy thing for Varric to find one of his friends in the trade registry and obtain a copy of the _Moriendi's _roster for his own; and a thing even easier for Isabela to wend her casual way among the bustle of the docks until she found the moored ship and its passengers and brought back, smirking, a confirmation that the man Fenris had described to her was indeed aboard.

Aveline had promised him her sword without even a word of coaxing, had been able to promise amnesty too if the fight he expected occurred in self-defense. Varric had been the one to suggest and pen the lure that would bring Danarius to the place of their choosing – if they could only find a place for the lure to be set. The certain threat of bloodshed had kept Varric from letting out his precious pub; Fenris himself had refused the idea of Hawke's estate in Town, not willing to jeopardize either her home or Orana on his sole behalf.

So in the end it was Merrill who found the place with the help of the Scottish priest Sebastian: a derelict chapel in Southwark called after St. Lucy, set away from the road and away from prying eyes behind a thick row of sycamore trees and a heavy wrought-iron fence.

It was astonishing, in truth, how every single one of his friends opened their hands to help him without a word of recompense. Fenris remembered once decrying the concept of depending on another to keep safe – no safety there when to trust another meant certain betrayal and a fate worse than death – but now it seemed a simple thing, an offer given and accepted almost without thought. An easy thing. A _natural _thing.

Regardless of whether he would live or die this night, Fenris was no longer the man he used to be.

Hawke's hand on his shoulder startled him from his thoughts. Fenris turned as she joined him at the tall, narrow window at the side of the church's empty hall, careful to keep away from the sharp edges of the broken, stained glass that still jutted from the iron crossbars like an old beggar's teeth. The night was cloudy with the faint threat of rain, the slivered crescent of moon hazed and glowing behind high fog to give little light, and between the darkness and the trees Fenris could not see a single gleam of a star.

"Are you all right?" she asked quietly as she leaned against the stone wall opposite him. Her black hair was bound tight at the nape of her neck, vest and shirtsleeves the same as the night he'd first met her; her eyes were dark in the unlit sanctuary, and Fenris could not tell if they were filled with hunger or only battle. "Or have those old fears got hold of you again?"

He smiled when she did, though he suspected his showed the same strain. "Not yet."

"That's reassuring," she murmured, and looked past him down the church's long, undecorated nave to where Merrill and Bethany sat on the once-fine dais. The altar itself had been left to ruin under the holed and unpatched roof; somewhere Merrill had gathered a fistful of daisies, and she dropped the petals upon the altar one by one as Bethany, humming, arranged them with an idle finger. Off to one side Anders had found what was left of a massive pipe organ under a moth-eaten dust cover; he placed himself at it without much ceremony, pulling broken melodies from pipes that strained and squeaked under their sudden burden and blew decades of dust into the air with each note.

A quick flare of match and light had Fenris glancing back towards the enormous doors that guarded the entrance. Aveline stood there with a taper in hand, and as Varric swept away the cobwebs from the forgotten table before her she tipped the candle forward and lit one of the remembrance votives. She paused a moment, her head bowed; then she handed the taper to Isabela beside her, her longsword at her hip glinting with the motion, and Isabela touched it to two or three votives of her own before blowing out the light.

"Poor bastards would prefer a drink," Fenris heard her mutter, "but they'll take what they can get and be grateful."

Hawke saw where he was looking and her brow pinched; then, quietly, she sighed. "Perhaps St. Lucy will have even the ghosts on our side," she murmured.

"Are you so unsure as to wish for the help of even the restless dead?"

Her eyes flew to his, then, and there was something bare in them that sapped away what little amusement he had left. "In an instant," she said, "if it meant the danger to you would be less."

Fenris caught his breath – and then he shook his head, and he let his hand lift to wrap around her arm. "It is the danger you face here that concerns me, Hawke."

"Oh, oh, oh, how fickle his heart," Hawke singsonged, but there was a sheen to her eyes that caught even the faint starlight as she covered his hand with her own. "I remember a time not so very long ago when you spoke of old and evil beasts."

"A lifetime ago."

"Not our lifetimes."

"No," said Fenris. "Not those."

Hawke's lips parted – but before she could speak there was a short, low whistle at the door where Isabela still stood, and Fenris's heart came to an abrupt and agonizing stop.

"Here we go," Hawke murmured, her hand tightening on his wrist before leaning up and pressing her mouth to his in one quick kiss. Then she whispered just loud enough for him to hear, "There is nothing to fear, Fenris."

It was a patent lie, and they both knew it – but there was truth beneath her words all the same, those same ember-stars arising, burning back the darkness. Fenris took her face in both hands and kissed her, hard, then rested his forehead against hers and put words to the truth of his own heart, the truth that she had planted there herself and grown into something tall and sturdy and strong.

_You are here_, he thought, and said, "I am not afraid."

-.-.-

They waited. Fenris had moved with the others to where they stood around the tattered altar; now he found himself in the center of the motley company gathering around them, Hawke to his right and Isabela lounging against the altar to his left. Anders lingered at the organ a moment longer, just enough to play one loud, ominous chord as the doors at the end of the hall began to open – then Bethany hissed a word and he bounded up to join them, laughing in the way a madman laughed before he died.

Danarius stepped into the church.

He was a faint and shadowed figure in the dimness, half-gone into nothing between the pale shafts of moonlight that spilled down through the broken windows. He wore a heavy black cloak that fell nearly to his feet, one fold of it held before his face as he stepped over the threshold – against the moonlight or what hallowed thoughts still held sway in this place, Fenris was not sure – but he came towards them all the same, unhesitating, and his score of guards stepped in behind him, and then his master lifted his eyes to the altar and let the cloak fall behind him to reveal the stern, bearded face that was as old and older as any memory he had.

"Well," said Danarius, his voice lifting upward to the sagging rafters as Fenris thought a priest's might have once, "well, well. My little wolf has found himself a pack."

_Not yours – not yours! _but the words were caught in the briars of his throat, his voice crushed back, choked away as if a fist had seized his neck.

Hawke spoke for him. "Fenris isn't a slave."

Danarius laughed. It was a cold sound, without amusement, long and slow and sinuous as the curl of a whip's tail. "How boldly you speak, my dear," he said, and as he stepped forward his gaze sharpened on Hawke's face in a way that made Fenris's gut clench. He passed from moonlight to darkness to moonlight again as he walked, his grey hair greyer in the light, greyer than Fenris remembered it – _realer_ than Fenris remembered him _–_

"No more than the truth allows," Hawke said evenly.

Danarius stared – and then something terrible lit in his face and he _smiled. _"Oh," he said then, the word drawn out until the echoes of the ruined room threw them back. "I see your teeth, girl. I see your eyes." He came closer, close enough that Fenris could see the recognition – and the avarice. "So this is the infamous Marian Hawke, defender of the poor, protector of the _weak_. My Fenris's new mistress."

A decade's worth of ghosts – and flight – and fears—

And Fenris found his voice.

"I am _not_ yours," he snarled, and he stepped forward into the circle of white light thrown down by the great round window set high above the altar behind him. It fell over the back of his neck, his shoulders, his arms – and on the Remington as he pulled it free, pulling along the barrel in long silver lines that matched the silver cartridges from Hawke that he had loaded for this purpose. "Danarius," he said, straightening his back, "I am not your slave."

"How little you know, my pet." Danarius's voice was still light, still smooth as glass – but Fenris had once known every inflection of his master's voice and every command it implied, had once been able to read the world and more in the lift of his master's eyebrow, and he knew that under the impenetrable calm his defiance had stung him.

_That _was strength – that was _triumph, _and there was triumph too when Hawke came to his shoulder without hesitating. His heart had already been racing; now it thundered forward like a wild horse, kicking against his ribs and reminding him with every beat that he was alive and free and _not alone_. "Go back," he said. "There is nothing for you here."

"You underestimate your worth," Danarius told him, and the score of guards that followed after him fanned out to either side where the first row of pews had once stood. Isabela flicked a dagger between her fingers, and a glint of metal came from Fenris's other side as Aveline pulled her sword free. "Or perhaps it is your new mistress who has so corrupted you from your perfect purpose."

"Fenris doesn't belong to anyone," Hawke snapped.

"Don't be foolish, girl. I put the lyrium in him – I know when it's been freshly bled." Danarius paused, the smile curling into a smirk. "Or is it jealousy that I had him first that has so wounded you?"

Shame coiled hot and quick in the pit of his stomach – but Hawke's fingers brushed over his wrist, just enough that he could feel it through his coat, just enough that he could feel the slide of the red-stained handkerchief against his skin. "Shut your mouth, Danarius."

The smirk vanished; the black eyes hardened; his voice cooled into those glacial tones that would once have had Fenris stiffening in fear. "You knew to kneel for me once. I will teach you that respect again." He turned his bearded face to the captain of his guard and said, "Bring him home. In one piece, if you please."

Aveline lifted her hand, the one that bore the etched bronze shield. "I warn you now," she said, her husband's badge glinting in her hand, her own authority in her voice, "that if you attack us here we _will _use force to defend ourselves." The captain let out a low, ugly laugh and drew a thin, lethal-looking blade from his own belt, and behind him three of his men slung black rifles from their backs and faded away into the shadows. Aveline, lowering her hand, smiled without humor. "Have it your way, then."

"Come," demanded Danarius, and the man raised his sword –

And it began.

The first went down before Fenris had even begun to move, one of Isabela's little knives jutting from his throat. The man let out a choked gurgle and fell to his knees; two of his fellows took his place, pistols and swords in hand, and then the leader was upon Fenris and there was no more time for anything but battle.

The captain was quick and quicker with his thin sword, but Fenris had the advantage of desperation and sheer fury – and lyrium-fueled incorporeality, which lit the world around him in blue-white fire as he ducked a whistling blade and pressed forward. The sword came up again, going for his ribs; Fenris caught the edge of it on a joint of his gauntlet and _twisted_, yanking the sword free until it flickered flame-bright into the air behind him.

The captain snarled and set his feet, throwing a punch at his jaw that would have leveled a horse. Fenris threw himself back, gasping; then the lyrium lit again, and in that single instant of the captain's shock his guard faltered – and Fenris plunged his fist into the captain's chest. The man let out a high scream—and Fenris _squeezed_ until he felt the needle-tips of his gauntlets pierce the quick-racing heart, until the man's dead weight pulled him backwards to the floor.

To his right Bethany shouted and Anders answered with a burst of golden flame; to his left Isabela and Aveline stood back to back, blades flashing and whirling in tandem, Isabela laughing into shadows and out of them again as Aveline held her ground like the center of the earth. All around him he could hear the shriek of air and stone alike as Merrill and Varric launched their respective missiles into the seething crowd; a hairline fork of white lightning branched past him close enough to singe his hair and Fenris whirled to see one of the riflemen who had been taking aim at him stagger back with one hand over his face.

"Oh, I got one!" Merrill cried from where she perched atop the remains of the choir screen. Fenris looked up and she grinned, throwing him a cheeky salute – and Anders's fire surged again in a blast of heat and light to pull her attention away again. Another rifleshot cracked loud enough to ring the forgotten bells in their tower and Fenris ducked, spinning back into the darkness between two broken windows on the east wall. The one who'd shot at him followed at a ran, already reloading his rifle – all the muscles of Fenris's back bunched at once as he pushed off the crumbling stone behind him and sprang forward with his arm outstretched.

The rifle clattered away on the pavestones, forgotten.

Fenris dragged in a breath and straightened, ignoring the thump of the body at his feet. The sanctuary was chaos – men screaming, men dying, the high clear clang of blade on blade and over it all the explosion of rifles and the hot hiss of magic. Aveline was bleeding from a thin slice along her cheek and Varric had lost his coat; one of the tattered hangings had caught fire behind Anders and smoldered ominously, sending up pale smoke that thickened the moonlight around them and thinned the air at the same time.

His chest heaved with effort, the Remington heavy at his side, and Fenris gripped it tighter as he tried to see through the brilliant flashes of light and the skirmishes that eddied around him. One of the rifle shots had caught him across his side but the wound was not deep – six cartridges loaded, six silver bullets, all of them with the sole purpose of destroying one man, the one man he could not find—

_There_.

There was Danarius across the nave, his cloak billowing around him as he moved in and out of the light – and there was _Hawke_, sweating, panting, her dark hair loose around her face, her lips turned up with an inexplicable wild laugh as she looked at Danarius and vanished into mist.

Fenris was already moving when she reappeared on the far side of the hall just long enough to whip a spray of ice at Danarius's back. His master spun and flung up an opalescent shield just as they struck, then immediately blew something thick and oily from the palm of his hand that spattered into the air like hot oil. Hawke recoiled and threw her arm across her face – it burned where it struck her to send up thin curls of smoke and she swore, tearing the sleeve away from her skin as Danarius laughed—

There was no counting of the enemies Fenris faced, nor even the barest recognition of their threat; there were only men who stepped into his way and men who died, as it had ever been from the earliest places of his memory. A pale-haired man with a broken nose caught him a glancing shot across his shoulders; Fenris ducked and leapt forward and brought down the butt of the Remington in one quick hard blow across the man's face to drop him to the ground. Another one with teeth too long and white to be human reached out a long-nailed hand for the lyrium that laced his neck – and Aveline was there first, her sword sliding through flesh and muscle as if it were water. The creature looked down at the blade emerging between his ribs, touched the tip, and fell limp.

Aveline shook the body free, her eyes hard. "What are you waiting for?" she shouted, and still Fenris could barely hear it over the cacophony. "Get going!"

He did not waste either words or breath on a response. Instead he pelted forward, the gun reassuring and solid in his palm, the lyrium under his skin singing with power and threat. Ten paces—five paces—_two_—

And he was there.

Hawke skidded backwards towards him and went hard to one knee, the fire she'd gathered around her hand vanishing upward into nothingness as she splayed her fingers on the stone for balance. Fenris reached her side and stopped; his breath came too quick and his side ached and his heart _pounded—_but his gun did not waver as he raised it to his master's heart.

"You flatter yourself, little wolf," Danarius said, his lip curling under his beard – but Fenris _felt _the gather of power in the air around him, knew it in the way he knew his name, and as the shadows lifted from the church's corners to wrap around Danarius's rising hands Fenris drew in a breath—

And fired.

The first bullet sheared left, thudding into Danarius's shoulder with a gasp of smoke. Danarius's mouth parted, his gathered shadows tearing into dark shreds as he dropped them, as he touched his own shoulder in surprise – and Fenris fired again.

This one found its mark. Danarius staggered back until he struck the wall, his eyes wide as they went to his own heart where the bullet had hit – and then he straightened, blind rage swelling around him like a palpable thing. "You _dare_," he hissed, his eyes blackened with wrath, his teeth as sharp as the point of a knife, "You _dare _raise your hand to me, you insolent boy—"

"I dare," Fenris snarled, striding closer, forgetting for a moment the battles that still raged, forgetting even Hawke behind him – there was nothing but the roar of blood in his ears, nothing but the rushing racing pulse of his heart. He cocked the revolver and Danarius vanished into shadow—

—and Fenris tore him from it, clawed gauntlets snagging in that black cloak until Danarius slammed to the ground at his feet. He was gone again before Fenris could blink, but the flow of power was the same for all their kind and he had fought too long with Hawke to be so easily fooled now, and when Danarius whipped into existence again at the foot of the altar Fenris's third shot took him through the thigh.

He staggered back with a cry; Fenris vaulted the low railing that separated them and fired twice more. Danarius swept out his arm in a black wheel and there was a scream of something beyond death, beyond agony – but a blast of magic exploded against his chest in a spray of white sparks and the scream cut off as if it had been torn out of the earth.

Fenris did not need to look to know it had been Hawke. Her magic was rooted in his bones, her strength as much a piece of him as his mind. He knew her touch; he knew her _heart_; and he knew, too, that there was nothing to fear at his back.

One shot left.

Three steps between Fenris and Danarius, three steps to place him on the same level as his old master where he leaned heavily against the altar. Merrill's flower petals were nearly gone, scattered away all save a few that fluttered still at the outside of Danarius's pale, trembling hand; Fenris neared and the motion of his passing strewed even those few into the wind. The pale dust-choked light that fell from the round window above the altar seemed to grip them both; it held Danarius by his throat and freed Fenris at the same time, lit the lyrium that chained him silver, lit his path forward until the shining muzzle of the Remington came to rest over Danarius's unbeating heart.

One shot—

"Stop," said Danarius, as if this were not an abandoned church in London, as if instead they stood again in the grand and shining halls of his villa in Italy, as if there was a power left in his words that had not been stripped by fire and blood. "Fenris. I command you. _Stop._"

"You are no longer my master," Fenris said, the words filling every hollow of his bones and mind and heart, and he fired.

Danarius jerked back across the altar, blood spraying black across it as if in homage to a holier sacrifice. His hand clawed across his chest as if to free himself from the pain, from the pressure of death that pressed too hard on him here – but Fenris was there first, lyrium lit from fingertip to shoulder, white-gleaming fingers crooked hard and sharp as he drove his hand into his master's chest and gripped carefully – so carefully – his heart—

"I made you what you are!" Danarius hissed, snaring Fenris's collar, pulling his bearded face close enough that Fenris could smell the blood that slid from the corner of his twisted lips.

"I am more than what you made me to be!" Fenris snarled, and Danarius let out a livid cry of wordless rage—

And Fenris tore his heart from his chest.

For a moment they hung there, Danarius's black eyes wide, his lips parted, the echoes of his fury still ringing from the stone – and then, like a drift of wood caught by a placid river, he fell backwards against the altar, his arms spread to either side, and came to rest.

Fenris watched him, still trapped between heartbeats – but there was no breath in the body now, no twist of black power in those long fishbone fingers, no glint of command in those eyes that stared sightlessly at the broken roof above him. Abruptly he realized that he still held Danarius's unbeating heart; he crushed it in one motion and threw it atop the body where the cloak fell away to drape over the edge of the altar. There was little blood left in it that had not already been spilt, barely enough to stain even his master's fine black coat, but Fenris stood there all the same, watching, waiting, uncertain, _unreal_ – a ghost among the dead.

It was – so _quiet._

"Fenris," said Hawke into that quietness, and he turned.

She stood one step below him, looking up, pale but steady. Their friends were scattered behind her, arranging the bodies of the dead and tending to those who were wounded; Anders had torn down the wall-hangings that still burned and stamped across them now, Bethany behind him, and Fenris could hear the laughter behind the admonition as she asked, "Can't we go _anywhere _without you destroying a church?"

Anders laughed too, and Isabela snorted, and Fenris looked again to Hawke. There was no laughter in _her_ face – and that, he thought, mirrored his own heart – but there was expectance, and a grave and solemn joy, and a weariness that could not hide the peace beneath it.

"Are you all right?" she asked, and it was as if her voice had snapped what strings still held him to his feet. She barely managed to catch him as he sagged, her hand tangling with his as they both reached for the support of the altar. "Easy," she murmured, "easy, Fenris, easy—"

"Nothing easy," he said shortly, his voice hoarse and strange to his own ears, but one corner of his mouth twitched in a smile. "Victory."

"Freedom," Hawke agreed, and the word was a shiver of thrown light over stones, the wild gasp of a man breaking the surface of a salt sea. He let his head fall forward to her shoulder, let her take his weight as he drew in a breath through his too-tight chest, as his heartbeat struggled for something like a rhythm.

_Freedom_—

"A little longer, Hawke," he said without raising his head. Her fingers slid through his hair, over the back of his neck. "Give me a little longer."

"Take as much time as you need," she whispered, and he felt her lips press gently enough against his temple to break what was left of him.

"Not much." Fenris straightened then, looked up to the round window above them both. "Only dawn."

Understanding flared in her eyes. "Of course," she said, and when Fenris nodded she managed something like a smile. "I'll wait," she told him. "When you're finished – I'll wait."

There were no words in him for gratitude so deep, nor for the gentler, delicate thing in his heart that was yet too fragile to name. Instead he kissed her, once, and let her go when she drew away.

She took the others with her as she left, all but Aveline, who made herself a seat by the doors and waited with him in silence. Dawn was not far away – Hawke's watch at his waist told him only an hour – and Fenris pushed away from the altar, moved a step or two back until he stood at the center of the platform, and did not move again.

Freedom.

It was still a word that meant nothing, a lofty concept that did not yet touch any real part of his life. He knew it would take time – but time, he knew now, he _had_, time and safety and a home and _Hawke_, who was all of those things in one, Hawke who waited for him even now. _She _knew freedom; he thought perhaps she would be willing to show him what it meant, to show him too how to live without fear, to let friendship and regard root into his heart despite the ache of the cracking stone, to let the age-old wall that guarded him so carefully crumble into dust under the gentle vining insistence of – love.

The sky began to lighten. It was still bitterly cold – February had brought little with it but ice, it seemed – but what was left of the night's misted clouds burnt away all the same under the rising rose-gold light, taking with them their half-promises of rain and shadow. He could not see the horizon past the tall sycamores that rustled and swayed in a sudden breeze but he knew it all the same; every moment of his waking life had been tied to the setting and the rising of the sun, to the deep silent places between the last starlit seconds of night and the high clearer light of—

Dawn.

The round window suddenly blazed as sunlight poured over the sycamores into the sanctuary, long speckling shafts of red and blue and green filtering through what little of the stained glass remained. It spilled over Danarius where he lay on the alter like water touched with gold; for several seconds nothing happened, and then with the slow steady kindling of thick paper touched to flame, Danarius began to burn.

It was not an angry blaze, nor the zealot's heat of a searing pyre. It was only a slender white flame, warm and calm and unfaltering. It lit first over the place where Danarius's heart had once been; then it spread over whatever it touched, rippling outward in even circles over his shoulders, his stomach, his throat, his feet. There was no sound save the gentle hush of smoke rising, thin and twisting in graceful curls that reached ever higher above them both.

Fenris did not look away, barely blinked as Danarius's body was eaten by the flame atop the altar. He did not know how long it took, nor how long he stood there; he simply waited, silent, still, his eyes fixed like an arrow fixed to the face of the man who had once been his master until even that was consumed in light.

At last, quietly, the flame died.

The altar was untouched, the fire that burnt above it not meant for mortal things. The only mark that Danarius had ever lain there was a weightless dusting of ash, white and fine and shining in the pale dawn-light. Fenris drew in a breath and it seemed like the first one in ten years; then he stepped forward and wordlessly smeared his gauntleted hand across the altar, brushing into nothing the things that once were, dispersing in a glittering cloud of dust the black places of his past.

There was one small statue left behind the altar: a woman in a veil, a dagger clasped to her chest, one hand lifting a lamp fearlessly above her. Fenris looked at her a moment, then up to the round window through which bright sunlight still streamed; and then he squared his shoulders and turned towards Aveline, towards Hawke, away from the ash-touched altar and its quiet guardian.

St. Lucy – the patron saint of light.


	14. Life Rises

**AN: **And here we are again at the end of a fic I never meant to be as long as it got. I suppose at this point I shouldn't be surprised; my first fic in this fandom, after all, suffered from the same sort of runaway-horse syndrome, but all of your support over my years of writing DA fic and sticking Hawke and Fenris into the worst possible situations I could imagine has made every bit of the hours staring at a blank Word document worth it. :)

This fic has been something of a swansong for me — not that I'm finished with Hawke and Fenris by any means, but I think it's time to ease away from the multi-chapter epics for a while. I don't mean to say I'm vanishing forever—who could, with a whole new game coming out this fall?—but it may be a little quieter around here as things recharge. I'd also like to take this opportunity to again thank both frikadeller and Jade for their amazing contributions to this fic, phdfan for her pinch-hit beta on chapters 10 and 14, and to you all as well for following along not only this story, but all of the others I've been so privileged to tell over the years. :)

See you around, everyone, and, as always, thank you for reading.

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen**

Life Rises

-.-.-

Most — I love the Cause that slew Me.  
Often as I die  
Its beloved Recognition  
Holds a Sun on Me —

Best — at Setting — as is Nature's —  
Neither witnessed Rise  
Till the infinite Aurora  
In the other's eyes.

—_Struck, was I, Not Yet by Lightning, _Emily Dickinson

-.-.-

Hawke was still awake when Fenris knocked quietly at her open door. She was not even in bed, he realized, apparently having bathed and changed instead into a simple red dressing gown to sit at a small writing desk below one of her windows. All the other drapes in the room had been pulled closed but these, though heavy sheers filtered away the worst of the light, and it was through those sheers that Hawke stared, her chin in her hand, her hair falling in a heavy haphazard braid down her back.

Fenris knocked again. This time Hawke turned, the softened light pulling down the curve of her cheekbone – and then she rose as he came towards her, quietly, his steps muted in the dimness of the room, on the thick rug laid over the dark-wooded floors. She searched his eyes as he reached her, wordless, voiceless, her hands lifting and then falling again without touching him. He did not know what she looked for, but when he grasped her hands she let out a soft sigh that had more relief in it than he had expected.

Ten years he had searched for freedom, and still it had taken him so long to recognize it.

"Well?" she asked, and she lifted her thumb to touch his collarbone.

"Gone," he told her, and before he could speak again her arms came around his neck in an embrace. It took him aback only a moment – and then his hands were on her waist, on her back, crushing her against him as if it might keep the fraying, bewildered places of his mind from flying apart entirely. Danarius was dead—

Danarius was _dead._

It was too enormous a thing to comprehend so quickly, too great a flame of truth to grasp without being burnt. Hawke's fingers were stroking through his hair, uncaring of the sweat and blood and ash that still stained it – Fenris put everything else from his mind, Danarius and death and freedom alike, and focused only on that motion, only on the rise and fall of Hawke's chest as she breathed against him. The world was too big a place without Danarius in it – so he would let his world be nothing more than this place, here, now, nothing more than the quiet of this room and where he stood in it.

Where he stood, holding Hawke.

She stirred eventually, moved her face away from where it had been buried in his neck without drawing back completely. "So tell me, Fenris," she murmured, smiling, her voice a lullaby in the silence, "what is to be your first act as a newly-freed man?"

He met her eyes, surprised by the question, unsure of his answer. Hawke saw that uncertainty and added, smirking, "There's always hot water, if you're desperate for a bath—"

Fenris kissed her.

At first he meant only to quiet her, to stop up her ridiculous humor without having to find words of his own – but her mouth was eager on his, her hands tightening on his shoulders, and Fenris decided that as an answer this would serve well enough.

And then her mouth opened under his, and Fenris thought nothing at all.

He had forgotten. Three months – only three months – and his memories had paled, his recollections dimmed like a canvas set too long in sunlight. Her hand was in his hair to pull him closer; his own thudded against the writing desk beside them as he tried to find his balance and keep Hawke with him at the same time. Her weight shifted and he shifted with her – and then her hips were pinned to the writing desk by his weight, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, his grip tight enough on her waist to bruise.

She opened her mouth again and he tasted wine, tasted too the still-lingering smoke of battle and open flame. She made a soft, hungry noise and his hands fisted in her robe at the tight heat the sound had sparked in his belly – but Fenris was determined that this would not be the same as the last time, not now, not when he was not who he had been and not when life itself stretched out before him, open, free.

"Wait," he said against her mouth, laughing at the gentle bite she gave him for the interruption. But all the same he would not be dissuaded; he pulled and she let herself be pulled, let herself be settled on the bed with her back against the high carved headboard, let Fenris sink down beside her and undo the catches of his still-stained gauntlets one by one until they loosened.

Hawke pulled them free herself, baring his fingers to the dim-lit room, and placed them carefully on her nightstand. Then she was back again, that same small smile curving her lips, pulling her father's watch and chain free of his waistcoat pocket, undoing the buttons of his vest so intently that the same heat in his gut twisted tighter and Fenris could not help pulling her mouth back to his. She laughed without stopping her work, and soon Fenris was shrugging out of his battered vest, peeling away too the bloodied shirt that lay under it to let them both fall forgotten to the floor.

"Battle scars," Hawke murmured, touching the newer bruises on his bare shoulder and his waist – and then her eyes went to the thin knife-wound that still bled sluggishly across his ribs, and Fenris felt rather than heard her intake of breath. Her bare fingers danced over the split skin with shocking warmth and for a moment he thought she meant to bring those fingers to her mouth – but she kissed his shoulder instead, and flattened her hand across his ribs, and a second or two later Fenris felt the cool tingle of healing magic wash over him to not only close that wound but to work out the aches he had carried in his back for too long, the knots that tightened his neck and wound tight under the bones of his shoulders.

"Better?" Hawke asked, and smiled.

"Better," he said, low and hoarse. Her magic had worked deeper than she knew; his self-control was fraying thread by thread with every word she spoke, and the touch of healing rather than teeth had been an unexpected weight on an already-straining cord. Worse, she looked as if she saw it, concern vanishing into outright delight, and Fenris laughed again, ruefully. Helpless. _Hopeless._

Enough, he decided, and kicked off his boots. If he were to do the thing he might as well do it properly – Hawke leaned back against the pillows again as Fenris knelt beside her on the bed, his hands slipping from her knee to hip to waist as he reached for the sash of her robe. He forgot himself once, when Hawke twisted her fingers in his hair and dragged his mouth to hers, but when he came back to himself again it was all the more encouragement to finish the knot once and for all.

She laughed as he freed her, laughed again as he slid the dressing gown away from her skin until it spread, wing-like, around her on the bed.

"Hawke," he said, looking down at her, as if there were words for such a thing as what she had given him.

Something caught in her eyes, something graver than the mood that had brought them both to this place. "Still here," she whispered, her hand splaying over the place on his chest where his heart beat; he covered it with his own, then brought her fingertips to his mouth, pressing his lips against them in mute apology, and in gratitude, and in place of the things he could not say. "Still here," she breathed again, and his mouth moved to the inside of her wrist, where the veins lay blue and still beneath her skin; then to the inside of her elbow; then to her shoulder and her breast until she arched off the bed under him.

Fenris wanted that – and he wanted _more_, wanted to _give _her more. She breathed his name into the pale shadows of the room and he smiled against her; and when her breath came as rapid as a stream he drew away from her breast, moved to her ribs, to her navel, to her hips and lower. There he stayed, feeling the muscles of her stomach jump under his fingers, working her higher and higher until she arched again, one hand in his hair, the other clenched in the pillow above her head as she gasped for air in quick half-sobs.

"Fenris," she said then, when she could speak, and pulled him up until she could kiss him. Her bottom lip was reddened where she had bitten it; Fenris kissed her there, kissed her again for no more reason than that he wished to, and when she let out a wry laugh into his neck he tightened his arms around her as if the pressure alone would keep this moment in his memory, preserved for a lifetime and more, clear glass dropped over the world to keep this exact second safe.

But time marched on and he had no glass besides, and when Hawke murmured in his ear it was no hardship to lean back himself, to help Hawke's clever fingers with the laces of his trousers until she could pull them free. Then Hawke stretched out beside him, and those fingers slid over his chest, his stomach, his sides, tracing out the long curling lines of lyrium with the edge of her fingernails, pulling light to their surface until it rippled across his skin like a sunburst.

One of her hands slid upwards, danced over the lines of his throat where his pulse beat, moved to touch his jaw. "Still here?" Hawke asked, a corner of her mouth turning up.

"Yes," Fenris told her, and when she slid lower on the bed he closed his eyes. Then her mouth was on him, and her fingers were on him, and even if Fenris had wished to he would not have been able to keep the noise he made from escaping his throat. She hummed in approval and that tore another word free – and Hawke laughed at that one, as if the oath had been a benediction instead. Then she settled again, and Fenris threw his head back into the pillows, and for several minutes there was no sound but his quick breaths and Hawke's low, tuneless humming.

Then all at once – too soon, _far _too soon – she tore away, and Fenris had to blink the stars from his eyes before raising himself on one elbow.

"Are you—" he started, hoarse and half-worried, hardly certain of what he meant to say, but Hawke cut him off before he could finish.

"I'm sorry," she said, one hand cupped over her mouth in horrified amusement. "I'm so sorry – I wasn't expecting—"

"What is it?" Genuinely concerned now, he reached up to pull her hand away; she resisted only a moment, and then she let her fingers slide between his as she dropped her hand, as he saw the white and shining teeth that had sharpened like blades in her mouth.

"I'm so sorry," she said again, though the last of it was choked in laughter. "I'll make it up to you, I swear."

"_Sarai la mia morte_," he groaned, and threw his arm over his eyes. The bed shifted as Hawke raised herself over him, as she slid her palms in long soothing strokes over his jaw.

"Fenris," she said softly, and he drew his arm away from his face. Her amusement had gone; what was there now was deep and true, stripped of the masks they both wore in self-defense. "I will not – I wanted to say—" she huffed a breath, frustrated with herself, then drew her hands lower until her thumbs rested along the veins of lyrium that stretched over his throat, along the unfaltering beat of his heart. "Only what you give," she said then, and met his eyes. "Only that. Nothing more."

For a moment he could not speak – then he found his voice, found too the words for what he thought she had already known. "It is yours," he said, and pressed her palm against his throat. "I am yours."

Hawke clenched her eyes closed, but Fenris had already seen the sudden shine of tears, the hitch of her chest as she tried to keep her breath even. That he could not bear; he pulled her leg across his waist so that she rested fully against him, touched the back of her head until her mouth came to rest at his throat beneath his ear.

"Too precious," she breathed over his skin, and let out a watery laugh; Fenris laughed himself and shifted them both on the bed until her hips were nearly flush with his, until it would only take a ghost of movement on either her part or his to close the space between them.

"Yours, Hawke," he said again, and felt her shudder to her bones against him; then she kissed his neck, and his throat where the lyrium ran, and with a shadow of a gasp her teeth slid into his skin.

"Yours," he whispered as she pulled free, as her lips closed hot and wanting over the place where he bled; "yours," he breathed when he gripped her hips in the palms of his hands and pulled her down to meet him.

One of her hands slid into his hair; her other stroked over his temple and his jaw, tender in a way he had forgotten Hawke could be, as if she held something she treasured, something she – loved. Her back curved up like a cat's and then bent again, and curved, and bent, yielding to his rhythm, yielding to the gentle demands he made of her as he palmed her spine, the muscles of her shoulders, her sides. Her mouth pressed against his throat, drawing out his heartblood in long slow strokes; he let one hand twine into her heavy braid, tugging free the leather strip that held it, unplaiting it section by section until the whole dark mass of it tumbled over his fingers like spilled ink.

A few strands caught on his calluses as she pulled free of his throat at last, as she touched a gentle swell of healing magic to the wounds she had made. Then she kissed him, her hair still tangled around his fingers, the taste of his blood still on her lips, and when she gasped his name into his mouth a few minutes later he wanted nothing more than to hear that sound again, and again, and again. But Fenris was human, as much as he could be, and Hawke had brought him too close earlier, and in only a few moments he followed her over, bowing up and against her until his forehead rested in the crook of her shoulder.

_Yours_, he thought, and he _chose_ – and that was freedom.

-.-.-

Later, once Fenris had at last washed and Hawke had thrown the unneeded robe and coverlet aside, they lay together in a quiet tangle of limbs. Hawke's head was tucked under his chin, her hair spilling over his chest as he breathed in the silence, as she breathed against him. Her arm lay across his chest, toying with one of his gauntlets where it had fallen to the white sheets beside them; she touched the tips of its claws, the articulated joints, slid her hand into the sheath too large for her and flexed her fingers so that they caught the faint light in long gleaming streams.

"Something's scratched out here," she said eventually, touching the rough place on the metal where an engraving had been rasped away.

Fenris moved his thumb where it rested at the nape of her neck, the memory easy, the wound healed and fading, the bruise no longer sore. "_Homo homini lupus est."_

"Man is a wolf to his fellow man?"

"Once."

Hawke hummed and ran her fingertips over the place again, then pushed the gauntlet away. "I can't give you anything like that. Not that you don't look very dashing in steel," she added, and her fingers slid up his arm and down it again to quell the motion he had made. "But I mean – oh, what do I mean?"

"I could not begin to guess, Hawke."

She thumped him on the chest with the heel of her hand; then she readjusted herself against him, sliding her leg further between his, pressing her head closer to his heart. "I mean," she said at last, without looking at him, "that for all the money my mother left me I can only give you worthless things. Friendship trapped by walls and veils. Freedom that you had already."

He waited; she paused, drawing in a breath, and then he felt her smile into his chest. "A heart that doesn't beat."

_That_ made his own skip forward, hard enough Hawke must have felt it – but she neither moved nor lifted her head, only kept trailing her fingers along his arm. "Hawke…"

"I did. Give it, I mean. I did a long time ago, before I'd even realized what I was doing. It's not a very _good_ one – broken, you know, and bit patchy with scars – but it belongs to you anyway, so – have it if you like."

The words had the ring of careful practice – but Fenris heard the nervousness beneath them, felt the anxiety in the tips of her fingers as they slowed on his arm. That was a simple fear to ease, made easier by the strength of his own feelings, by the heady unfamiliar lightness of free and open affection. He grasped her trailing hand in his own, reached up until he could press his lips to her bare arm; then he slid his hand over hers until her thumb hooked into the red cloth still bound around his wrist.

He said, quietly, "As did I."

Hawke grew very, very still. Then she shifted, rose up onto one elbow beside him, and without freeing herself from the handkerchief she leaned down and kissed him. There was no heat to it, no savagery, no _need_; instead it was an affirmation, and a promise, and when it was finished she lay down again and splayed her fingers over his stomach.

He fell asleep to the rhythm of her breath and her voice, humming, gentle and soft, and he did not dream.

-.-.-

They rose sometime near dusk. They were both quiet as they dressed, not out of discomfort but of precisely the opposite: because when one was utterly content one _could _be quiet with the ones they cared for, in the place that was home. Hawke seemed to have some sort of fascination with his vest; she insisted on doing the buttons herself and on replacing his pocket watch where it was meant to be – though she did consent to allow the favor returned when her offhanded mention of a corset had heat flaring in his chest and his fingers twitching at his sides.

"You're only helping me put it on so you can take it off later," Hawke accused him from where she held the bedpost, though there was breathless laughter in her voice.

Fenris tied the laces at the small of her back neatly, permitting his hand to linger only a moment on the curve of her hip. "Do you object?"

"Not in the slightest."

He laughed, then, and kissed her, and when at last he had tugged his grey coat into place and Hawke had finished tying herself up in a prim lavender evening dress with a black ribbon at her throat, they made their way downstairs. Varric had wanted them all at the Hanged Man by eight for cards; Bethany and Merrill had left already, but Orana had prepared for Hawke and Fenris a light dinner of pasta and lamb, and a quick glance at the watch with the Amell crest told him they had more than enough time.

Despite himself Fenris caught his eyes wandering to Hawke too frequently during the meal. Her hair was twisted up behind her head; he knew she favored that twist, knew too that she favored fire over ice, and mercy when she could give it; knew that she preferred purple to red and French to Spanish, that her German was beyond atrocious and she had a terrible habit of collecting useless, broken things in the futile hope of making something more of them.

But that, he thought, was why he had found himself here to begin with.

When they were finished, Fenris pushed back from the table and collected their overcoats and gloves from Bodahn. Hawke let him help her into hers, let too her hand curl around the inside of his elbow, and Fenris felt a twist of heat spark from where she touched him to settle deep in his stomach.

He wanted to know _more_. Not only the enormous things, the broad sweeping strokes that made up her heart and her history – but the small things too, the insignificant habits, the look in her eyes as she read a novel, the way her fingers curled under his in her sleep. But there was _time _for that, time enough and more, now, to learn not only the dark places of her heart but the light ones too, time to unfold the hidden pieces of her life as she allowed him, as she unfolded his own in return.

He was not the man he once was – but that was right, after all, because that man had been little more than flight and hatred, little more than a ghost in the dark as he ran from shadow to angry shadow. But Hawke had caught him even though he had not wished it, had nailed him to the ground between the dark places until he could no longer hide, forcing out his haunting ghosts with a light that burned as brightly at the sun. The man he was had died the night he'd met Hawke; now Fenris buried him, cleansed, clear-hearted, let him go without mourning. Hawke loved a living man, not a ghost.

Fenris intended to live.

The February air was cold and crisp, the night's first stars beginning to creep out between the bare branches of the oak tree in the next yard over. Fenris adjusted his hat and started down the steps; he was halfway down before he realized Hawke had paused at the top, and, pausing himself, he turned to look up behind him.

There was something in her face, something amused and wry and amazed at the same time; she raised her eyes to his and said, "Do you remember the last time we stood here like this?"

"Yes," he said, because he did, and shook his head. "I suspect you would prefer not to."

"You _were _terribly short with me. I confess I was surprised you didn't shoot me right then."

"_That _urge vanished the night of Lady Dace's party."

"I remember that. You danced so well I almost forgot you were angry with me."

He snorted, distant with memory. "Anger is too pale a word. Death drove me then, and hatred. I could see little past those."

"Remember what I said about rising above what you were made to be?"

"Yes. I remember, too, the night you laughed at me from a rooftop."

"How little I realized then! I thought you would be there and gone again the moment you saw me at the Daces'."

"You may recall my own greeting was – less than enthusiastic."

"_I _remember. Quite vividly, actually, as I believe you tried to shoot me. More than once. And _then _you tried to tear my heart from my chest."

Fenris shook his head, feeling as if the smile that threatened was a dangerous thing and still unable to repress it. "Regrettable," he murmured, thick with mock gravity.

"More than that," Hawke said, her eyes alight with humor. "But I suppose we _dramatis personae _always walk the fine line between comedy and tragedy."

Her words were light but they caught something in his chest all the same; Fenris moved back up the steps until he stood beside her and let his hand lift to touch, gently, the place where her heart had once lived. "Tragedy comes too close," he said, his voice thick now with something else, and Hawke stilled. The words were already on his tongue; it amazed him how was easy it was to loose them, to give voice to something that had been as alien to him a year ago as peace. "I did not know it then, but – meeting you was the most important thing that ever happened to me, Hawke."

She drew in a breath. "Tearing out my heart with words now. A subtle strategy."

He shook his head again. "Now I would only take it from you if you asked," he told her, low and true, and then in a moment of reckless abandon added the truth's other half: "My own would follow after."

For a moment her eyes clenched shut as if she had stared too long at something too bright, and when at last they opened again they shone with tears. Hawke leaned forward and kissed him, quietly, tenderly, and then she said against his mouth, "Then I suppose yours will have to beat hard enough for the both of us."

His hand was on her hand; he lifted her fingers to the place on his neck where his pulse ran, where lyrium marked the veins in whorls and vines of silver light. "I am yours."

"Then – _stay_," she whispered, and her fingers curled around his jaw.

He said, "I will," and while there was hope there was promise too, and _purpose_, and a decision that both bound and freed him at once.

Hawke kissed him again, hard and hot and utterly unlike the last; then she tore away and strode down the steps. At the bottom she turned and looked up at him, her face framed in dark hair, her eyes glad and blazing, her smile a thing of untamed joy. "Well?" she asked, and laughed. "What are you waiting for?"

"Perhaps you should tell me," he said, his voice dry, though there was a slow unfurling elation in his own heart that matched what was in her face.

"You're a free man, aren't you? Choose your own orders."

He began to descend the stairs, his eyebrow lifted. "_You_ ordered me to come back."

She took his hand when he reached her, her fingers twining between his, her thumb slipping over the scarlet handkerchief that enclosed his wrist. "And so you did. And here we are. And – now—" she added with a grin, "We should move on."

Fenris laughed, and he went with her into the night.

-.-.-

It well may be that I saw too plain, and it may be I was blind;  
But I'll keep my face to the dawning light,  
though the devil may stand behind!  
Though the devil may stand behind my back, I'll not see his shadow fall,  
But read the signs in the morning stars of a good world after all.

Rest, for your eyes are weary, girl — you have driven the worst away —  
The ghost of the man that I might have been is gone from my heart to-day;  
We'll live for life and the best it brings till our twilight shadows fall;  
My heart grows brave, and the world, my girl, is a good world after all.

_After All_, Henry Lawson

-.-.-

The End


End file.
